


Lance and His Alien Best Friends

by Celty_me



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alien OC's, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuban Lance (Voltron), Cussing, Dialogue Heavy, Dorks in Love, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, Exasperated Allura, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Gay Keith (Voltron), His Friends Would Do Anything For Him, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Humor, I promise, Innuendo, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Has ADHD, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance Makes Friends, Lance is adorable, M/M, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Or They Hate Him, Or They Want to Bang Him, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Pretty Much Exasperated Everyone, Protective Keith (Voltron), Protective OC's, Protective Shiro (Voltron), Sentient Voltron Lions, Soooo Much Innuendo, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Space Mom Allura (Voltron), Space Uncle Coran (Voltron), There is no inbetween, everyone loves lance, it'll be there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-02-06 13:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12818517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celty_me/pseuds/Celty_me
Summary: Since Lance became a paladin of Voltron, every time he goes out on a solo mission he returns with a new alien best friend. So far, his friends include:A nine-foot tall, pink skinned, lesbian Amazonian goddess name Frank (and excuse you but it’s a very fierce and feminine name on her planet)A four-foot tall genderless, sexless, butterfly-winged ass hole named Click (so called because no one could pronounce their actual name).And a massive, Clydesdale size alien wolf creature who can turn his pelt into razor sharp spikes, but otherwise sported the softest, fluffiest, most amazingly poofy black fur in the galaxy. His name was Spot. Lance had suggested Cerberus (because awesome, right?), but when Spot asked what it meant, Lance begrudgingly told him it meant “Spotted” in ancient Greek. Almost Cerberus liked 'Spot' better.The others accept their new housemates (castlemates?) with barely veiled befuddled exasperation.These are their adventures.Rate M for lots of cursing and for way too many innuendos.





	1. Before you, this never happened

**Author's Note:**

> Yay a new fic! Since my other one is still ongoing starting a new one is probably a bad idea, but I need to write something with more humor! After nearly 80,000 words and so much angst in the other one, my brain demanded I write something a little less serious. 
> 
> However, because I'm weak, there will still be angst (mostly Lance angst) because I can't help but make my blue boy suffer a little. It's going to be tempered with a a lot of ridiculousness though. 
> 
> Uhm, there will probably be smut (eventually) and at that point the rating will change. But for now there will just be a lot of explicit language, bad puns, innuendos, and Lance having three amazing alien best friends who regularly yell at and insult each other.

“Honestly how does this always happen to you?”

“It does NOT always happen to me,” Lance said petulantly.

“Oh really?” Frank replied. “Because I literally never once got capture by anyone before I joined up with you.”

“Oh come on it doesn’t happen that often.”

“I came from a warring planet where we all literally try to kill each other on sight, and even then I wasn’t attacked so often.”

“You were a hermit! That hardly counts!”

“I was NOT a hermit! I am a lesbian and I enjoyed solitude because my people are too damn aggressive! It’s only fighting and fucking! Most the time we all just try to kill each other, then oh the sun gets closer and it gets warmer and we all gotta fuckfuckfuck and pop out a bunch of babies before it gets cold so the endless cycle never stops! And because of the damn mating instinct I couldn’t find a nice female to fuck because they were all too busy chasing after the cowardly males so they could get knocked up!”

“Stop saying fuck,” Lance groaned, trying desperately to free his hands just so he could cover his ears.

“You’re such a prude,” Frank said. Her vaguely disturbing, pupil-less purple eyes were filled with distaste.

“I’m not!”

“My people have no sexual organs, no gender, and don’t understand the concept of sex, and even I am less of a prude than you are,” came the lilting voice of Click who was trussed up a few feet away. The angry buzzing of their wings created a ceaseless din, but the butterfly fairy’s (who did not appreciate being called such) bonds were staked into the ground and so they could therefore only hover angrily a couple inches off the ground.

“Oh my god I hate you both. I’ll have you known that plenty of ladies and gentleman enjoy my flirting are lining up to have s— relations with me.”

“Do you think they realize we’re here?” one of their Galra captors asked.

“Oh my stars you can’t even say the word sex!” Frank grinned wickedly.

“I mean we never left after we tied them up so they have to know,” said the second Galra.

“I can to!”

“Say it then.”

“Well I think now is hardly the time.”

“Is this seriously happening?” Galra #3 asked.

“It’s the perfect time, we’ve got nothing going on right now!”

“We are literally standing right here pointing blasters at you!” Galra #1 shouted – he sounded a little desperate.

“But there’s no point.”

“Lance, say sex.”

“No.”

“Say iiiiiiiiiiiit.”

“No.”

“Sweet stars Lance, say it and she’ll stop bothering you,” Click said.

“I don’t want to!”

“Prude!”

“Fine! Se—“ Lance stuttered and stopped talking when his face flushed bright crimson. He pressed his lips together and ducked his head causing his too long, rich brown curls to fall into his face. He needed a haircut – the blue paladin made a note to remember to ask Hunk to do it when they got back.

“Quiznak you’re adorable,” Frank cooed.

“Really?” Lance asked, turning doe eyes to the pink Amazonian.

“The cutest.”

“What the quiznak,” Galra #5 said.

“Even if I’m a prude?”

“Oh my stars yes. You’re my precious little prudish blue paladin and I never ever want you to have _relations_ with anyone because you are too pure and innocent and should never be tainted by the world.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Oh here they go,” Click muttered.

“Seriously are we invisible? Did something malfunction with our cloaking generator?” Galra #3 said.

“Oh course I do! No one is more sweet than you – you’re whole being is made up of rainbows and unicorn tears.”

“Galra!” Lance snapped, turning his big blue doe eyes to the five Galra standing to the side watching the exchange with horrified fascination. They all jumped when he suddenly addressed them.

“Uh, yes?”

“Untie me, I need to hug my best friend.”

“Wha—what?” #1 stuttered.

“I have the most awesome bestest friend in the galaxy and right now I need to hug her!”

“You both are idiots,” Click said.

“That’s not how this works.” #2 said.

“What?” Lance asked.

“You’re our prisoners. We captured you. You don’t give us orders.”

Lance’s eyes went wide. He adopted his most innocent, ‘I’m the purest creature in the galaxy’ face complete with full, slightly pouting lips and wide eyes. The faces of all five Galra visibly melted even as they resisted the urge to coo. Frank had no such reservations and did coo. Click tsked in distaste.

“Wow. How long have you guys been out here on this planet?”

“Uhm, I don’t know. A little over a deca-phoeb I guess?”

“Wow!” Lance said again. “But this planet is so dangerous and the terrain is really rough. You all must be exhausted having been out here for so long.”

The blasters lowered just a fraction.

“It’s been kinda rough,” #4 admitted.

“I bet. How often do you get supply drops?”

“Not often enough,” #2 grumbled.

“What?!? So they just leave you out here with inadequate supplies. But you all are super talented, you even captured us! I’m a paladin of Voltron!”

“You think so?” #5 said.

“Yeah I mean, I’m honestly really impressed.”

“Hey thanks, Lance was it?”

“Yup that’s me! I think the Galra are wasting their resources keeping you out here.”

“You know it means a lot that you say that. It's been a really rough couple years and our captain's a dick,” #1 said. Lance flashed a brilliant smile brighter than the two suns that turn the planet into one massive, humid jungle. The blasters dropped completely.

“It’s really true. Hey though my arms kinda hurt, would you mind undoing the cuffs. It just…it’s kinda scary because Frank told you I’m a v—virgin and it makes me nervous to be tied up.”Lance flushed scarlet again after saying the 'v' word. 

“Oh quiznak yeah of course,” #3 said. He immediately started forward.

“We totally aren’t going to do anything!” #4 said quickly.

“You guys are really awesome,” Lance said with another blinding smile.

#3 had just put his hands on the cuffs when another, much larger Galra appeared through the brush.

“What the quiznak are you doing!” he snarled. #3, along with all the other numbers flinched, looked at their captain, back to Lance, then back to their captain and shook their heads with bewildered expressions. #3 jumped away from Lance as if he’d been burned.

“What the—how the? What just happened!” he shouted.

“How did you _do_ that?” #1 whispered.

“Aww, damn. You ruined it,” Lance said to the new Galra, #6.

Frank cooed comfortingly. “It’s okay, you almost had them.”

“I still need to hug the shit out you,” Lance said.

“Kinky but I'm not into that kind of play, even if you were a hot woman.”

“Urge to hug you gone now.”

“Shut up!” #6 bellowed – his voice echoed through the trees and cause alien birds to squawk and take flight. “You five idiots, get them up and back to the base so we can transport them to a cruiser!”

“He’s loud,” Click mentioned. Lance and Frank nodded.

“Yup.”

“How long you think?”

“Two dobash,” Lance said.

 

The five stooges, overseen by a still angry #6, were in the process of un-staking their bonds to the ground and getting them up, #1 taking charge of Lance, #3 taking charge of Click, and #2, 4, and 5, the biggest ones, taking charge of Frank.

Two dobash later all animal sounds in the forest went quiet. Birds stopped chattering. The rustling of small little alien jungle creatures ceased. All around them the jungle life ran for cover. The Galra were oblivious. Lance and his friends were not.

They got no warning as a massive canid leaped onto #6, put his super sharp and gleaming teeth to his neck, and _wrenched._ There was a popping sound, the captain fell to the ground, and the five stooges went completely frozen.

“Did you hurt them?” Spot growled. All five Galra shook their heads. Spot’s big, predatory yellow eyes flicked to their hands that were still touching his three friends. The Galra immediately let go and backed up.

“Listen we don’t even like working for Zarkon. Honestly he’s so weird but it’s a tyrannical dictatorship you know,” #5 said with a ‘what can you do?’ shrug.

“Untie them,” Spot growled. They scrambled to comply, actually fighting each other over who would get to be the ones to release them.

“Thanks guys, I knew you were awesome,” Lance said when his hands were free. He graced them with a disarming smile. They visibly relaxed and smiled shyly.

“Thanks,” #4 said.

“Now can you guys just stay here for a bit? Everything’s totally cool, we just need to go that way and you guys should take a break. You can even keep my pack, it has ration bars in there.”

“Sure thing Lance.”

“Great! Good luck guys, see you later!”

“Bye!” they all waved happily. With Lance in the lead, he and his three friends strode through the trees. Only when they were a good distance away did Lance stop, whirl, and throw his arms around Spot’s neck.

“You are so amazing!”

Spot growled shyly. “No one hurts any of you,” he said. Lance buried his face into the cloud-soft fur.

“Not with you around no. You didn’t even have to show them your spikes, that’s how fierce you were!”

“I was very fierce.”

“Yes you were,” Frank said. Click 'tsked' in distaste.

“We still have a Galra base to blow up,” they said.

“Right, but Spot when we get home you are getting all of the belly rubs.”

“All of them?”

“ _All_ of them!” Frank said.

“Yay,” Spot said quietly.

“Oh my stars,” Click scoffed. Their wings snapped against Lance as they flew past him to take the lead.

 

Blowing up the base was relatively easy since the communications outpost was understaffed and 75% of that staff was in the jungle eating ration bars and shooting the shit. Their success at blowing it up also meant that a large sector of Galra space would be left without a communications relay which meant they’d lose the ability to coordinate over long distances.

They sprinted back to blue, the robot lion rumbling a welcome in their minds when all her kits were on board, and then the next moment they were docking in the castle.

Allura met them at the lions, Keith and Shiro there are well. Coran walked in a few seconds later.

“Good job Lance! We were worried when we lost communication but you completed your mission beautifully!” the princess said.

“Aww, thanks ‘Lura,” Lance said. Click scoffed and angrily flew towards the door.

“We got captured again and Lance tried to get free by telling the Galra he was a scared virgin.

Keith choked on seemingly nothing. Shiro gave him a pitying look Lance didn’t understand and patted him on the back. Lance himself sputtered indignantly.

“That’s not true and it’s the whole story, a lot more than that happened! And we got out and blew up the base.”

“It is true because you are a scared virgin, and you told the Galra that - you even stuttered over the word virgin. And we all got out because of Spot!” Click called before fluttering through the door.  
           

“Worst best friend ever!” Lance shouted after them. Keith still seemed to have trouble breathing.

“It’s okay, you’re still precious and adorable,” Frank soothed.

“You are a very precious and adorable virgin,” Spot added.

“Ungh,” Keith said.

“What?” Lance said to Keith. Frank looked at Keith, then at Lance, and then shook her head in disgust.

“You both are disgusting,” she said.

“What did I do! You just said I was adorable!”

“Disgusting!” Frank stalked off in the direction Click had gone. Lance threw his hands up in bewilderment.

“I still think you’re adorable,” Spot said.

“Aww, thanks buddy. You’re my really best friend,” Lance said. Spot growled happily. Allura shook her head, used to but also so NOT used to the chaos that was Lance and his friends.

“Regardless, you completed the mission and did very well. You both should go bathe and take a rest, you’ve earned it.”

“We won’t bathe together because Lance is an innocent virgin and his beautiful body has to stay unspoiled and protected like gold. That's what Frank said,” Spot stated.

“Ungh,” Keith keened.

“What the crap Spot!” Lance shouted, but the giant wolf alien was already walking away. Lance ran after him still shouting his indignation.

“You okay man?” Shiro asked.

“Ungh,” was all Keith could manage. Shiro continued to pat him sympathetically.

“Let’s go train so you can work out some of your… frustration.”

“Please god yes,” Keith said.

“I’m starting to agree with Click,” Allura said with a prim sniff of disgust before leaving the room. Coran just rolled his lips in a desperate attempt not to laugh. Shiro sighed and guided the red paladin out of the room and towards the training deck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like to chat with me outside the comments section of this website, feel free to hit me up on Tumblr: https://celty-me.tumblr.com
> 
> I adore comments and respond to almost every single one I get so keep them coming! You all are amazing and beautiful people.


	2. Why Do You Think That?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone chills and Lance decides to share some revelations that the others would probably prefer not to hear about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two, hooray! I'm so happy with the positive feedback I got on chapter one, so I hope I can keep living up to expectations, haha! Your comments make me smile so much!
> 
> Uhm, quick note, this fic WILL have a plot, I totally promise. I just need to write a few starter chapters to establish characters, personalities, and interactions and stuff, before I introduce the overall plot of this little romp. But also, aside from a general idea of the overall plot, this thing is not mapped out in my head at all. Each chapter is going to be as much of a surprise to you as it is to me cause I'm basically taking my brain off it's leash and saying "GO!" 
> 
> LAAAAAST thing. If anyone here is also reading my other fic, don't panic! This one isn't replacing that one and an update for it is coming soon. I got a fever, then a cold, and I teach small humans for a living so my brain gets super tired and I just haven't been able to force myself to write anything overly seriously. Once the sickness is banished I'll pop out a chapter for the other one. 
> 
> If you are a new reader to my fics, fair warning, most my chapter notes are long and rambling. Hehe... enjoy!

             Nineteen years ago, a little boy was born in Cuba. He had bright blue eyes, the face of an angel, and the personality of a hyperactive bobcat if bobcats loved hugs, talked in circles, never actually stopped talking in general, and charmed the heck out of almost ever single adult he met.

            All was peaceful except the boy didn’t really have many friends. You see, he was charming and precious and all the adults loved him while all the children thought he was just about the strangest thing they’d ever encountered. The little shits just didn’t know how to deal with someone whose IQ was so vastly above their own, or someone who their parents liked better than them.

            So naturally, the boy was somewhat lonely and occupied his time by starting rumors (Señor Villanova really did turn Martin into a toad. Have you see Martin lately? No! That’s because he’s a toad! No his family didn’t move away they are all toads to. I don’t care if you helped them move and said bye to Martin as he was getting in the car on the way to the airport. He’s a toad). He had a knack for rumors and often times his parents would sigh in exasperation when some new ridiculous fable reached their ears because they knew exactly who had started it.

            He also made friends with all the police officers so when the shithead bully of the wild children who roamed the streets got his pants lit on fire and accused the boy, the police officers told the bully’s parents that there was NO way Lance could have been the culprit because they’d spotted him on the other side of town helping Señora Famosa wash her cat.

            Yes, all the adults adored their little blue boy and so did his family. Mama, Papa, Tío Pablo, Tía Maria, Abuelo, and Abuela who all lived with Lance. There was also Tío Francisco, Tía Rosalba, Goma, and Gompa who lived next store, and all his primos who would come and visit. He was the baby of the family and universally adored, even if he did regularly cause them all to shake their heads in complete and utter confused befuddlement. They were all happy, even if they didn’t have much money.

            Then one day Lance said he wanted to go to space, so his mama and papa decide they wanted their little boy to have more chances than they did. They moved away from their little Cuban town when he was nine, and hopped across the pond to the states. They settled in California, decided to try and fit in by changing their name to McClain, and left much of the rest of the family behind.

            The little blue boy got lonelier. It was easy to forget that the other children found him weird when he had all his family bustling around him all the time; when all the other adults gave him treats, played with him, told him jokes, taught him things. He didn't have that distraction anymore.

            He grew up without friends in America, but still decided to join the Garrison and go to space so he could make his mama and papa and all his family proud. But he was still strange, still talked too much, was still flirty, and the adults in America didn’t find him as charming as they did in Cuba.

            Then he made his first friend ever at the Garrison. A big Samoan named Hunk who loved hugs as much as Lance did. He met a little gremlin boy who insisted they were NOT friends, but Lance studiously ignored those words.

            Fast forward through the years. They found a giant blue robot lion who adored him far more than any human ever had. He met his idol who was almost as overprotective as his papa. He formally met his rival who he would never admit gave him a boner the first time he had laid eyes on him because hot DAMN he was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. A princess who tolerated him with mild exasperation and secretly loved having her hair braided. He met his weird new space uncle who seemed to be the only one who could keep up with the super intelligent yet highly scattered thought train of the blue paladin.

            But he was still lonely. An extra. Hyperactive and flirty and ridiculous and talkative and never let anyone see him be serious because it was better to be silly and disappointing than serious and disappointing. At least when he was silly they expected him to disappoint them.

            He never expected that during his time as a paladin he would meet three aliens who would follow him into a volcano (with a whole lot of bitching because really Lance? My hair!), which had only happened once and Lance still protested that the Galra COULD have been hiding in there. They were like his family. They accepted every little thing about him and would kill anyone who tried to hurt him (yes Spot you _are_ the best boy). They didn’t care that his thoughts often scattered or that sometimes he couldn’t pay attention or got too hyper.

            All of these miraculous things led to him sitting in the castle common room snuggled up against Spot’s floofy fur after a good hour of belly rubs, staring at the ceiling and thinking hard.

           Frank and Allura sat leaning against Spot from the other side while the Amazon braided the princess’s hair. Hunk and Pidge were hunched over on an empty patch of floor tinkering with something. Coran was reading a space novel and Shiro was analyzing some sort of data something that he’d tried to explain but Lance had checked out about 1 second in. Click was mediating or sleeping, Lance didn’t know which but they sat cross-legged on the couch, back ramrod straight, wings still, and hands folded in their lap, completely motionless. It was creepy.

            “You know I was thinking about something,” Lance said, head still resting back against spot, face angled towards the ceiling.

            “What were you thinking darling?” Frank asked. The door to the common room opened and a freshly showered Keith stepped through.

            “When we get captured, we get tied up a lot right?”

            “That’s right although I’m concerned with how nonchalantly you talk about being captured,” Frank said. Allura made a noise of agreement.

            “And when it happens,” Lance continued, ignoring the latter half of Frank’s statement, “I feel kinda funny.”

            Keith made it to the stairs that led to the sunken area where the couches were.

            “How so?”

            “I think I get a little turned on. Do you think I’m a masochist?”

            Keith’s foot slipped out from under him on the stairs and he fell on his ass before sliding down and onto the floor. Everyone looked at him – his face was red and holy stars he was hot as sin even spilled across the floor as he was.

            “Stairs are slippery,” he muttered before picking himself off the ground. Frank looked at Keith, to Lance, back to Keith, then grinned wickedly before schooling her face back to neutral.

            “Well precious, masochist means that you like pain. If you just like being tied up it means you’re into bondage.”

            “Is this conversation really happening right now?” Pidge asked.

            “I think I might be into bondage,” Lance continued as if Pidge had never spoken. Keith wheezed as he all but fell onto the couch beside Shiro.

            “Seriously? You both can’t talk about this somewhere else?” Pidge continued. Frank and Lance continued ignoring her.

            “Keith are you quite alright?” Allura asked.

            “Fine, hard fall,” he said sounding out of breath.

            “Yes I’m sure the fall is what was hard,” Frank commented. Keith groaned and doubled over so he could rest his head on his knees. Shiro rubbed his back soothingly.

            Lance watched the actions of their leader, noticing just how comfortable the two were with each other and how casually they touched each other. A little bit of jealousy bubbled up before he pushed it back down deep. He had no right to be jealous of Keith and Shiro. Even if there was something between them, both men deserved to be happy. It wasn’t like Lance had much of a chance against Shiro – the black paladin was just about everyone’s wet dream being all mature and buff and serious with super cool hair and a nose bridge scar. Seriously how could such a gnarly scar make someone so much _more_ hot like, it should have made him uglier but it just increased his hotness by about a thousand percent. How could Keith not love someone like that, especially when they had so much history?

            “I don’t know if I like pain though.”

            “I can bite you if you want,” Spot rumbled.

            “Easy there buddy. Biting is kinky, but being bitten by a giant wolf is a whole different story. Lance said he’s turned on by bondage, not bestiality,” Frank said.

            “Definitely no on the bestiality thing. Don’t worry though, you’re still the most beautiful alien wolf thing I’ve ever met. I think I probably definitely like the bondage thing though.” Spot seemed satisfied by that answer.

            Keith curled up tighter into a ball and Shiro winced at him in sympathy – both actions went unnoticed by Lance.

            Click hissed in distaste before opening their eyes. “How is it you can talk about bondage but you can’t even say the word sex without going apoplectic?”

            “I can say that word!” Lance said while very obviously avoiding saying the word.

            “Well bondage doesn’t necessarily have to include sex,” Frank supplied helpfully.

            “How is this conversation still happening?” Pidge asked.

            “That’s very true!” Coran jumped in. “Why, back in my day there was a whole mess of Alteans who liked…”

            “I think this topic should be put to rest,” Allura interrupted quickly. She was used to (not) the antics of Lance and his friends but he didn’t want to hear about her uncle’s bondage adventures.

            “My love,” Frank continued as if Allura hadn’t spoken. “Do you like when just anyone ties you up, or do you get more excited at the idea of someone specific tying you up?”

            “Oh.my.god,” Pidge said. Hunk just laughed. He was more used to these strange conversations than anyone else.

            “Someone specific?” Lance hummed. He couldn’t help but flick his eyes over to Keith who was still folded over, but he could see his long, elegant hands encased in the leather fingerless gloves. He suddenly thought about those gloved hands on him, pinning him to the bed.

            “Oh stars,” he murmured as his face flushed crimson. He curled his knees to his chest as his pants suddenly felt just a little too tight. Frank cackled.

            “Oh, you suddenly got red. Who did you just think of?”

            Suddenly Keith was sitting upright, staring intently over in Lance’s direction. He might have growled even, or it could have just been Spot’s stomach gurgling. Lance didn’t notice the attention because he was too busy trying to hide himself in Spot’s fur.

            “I’m feeling like getting some extra training in!” Shiro announced suddenly. “Keith you should join me.”

            “He just finished training. He smells clean now,” Spot said. Keith was still staring at Lance.

            “We can never have too much training. Let’s go,” Shiro said. He stood up and grabbed Keith’s arm before pulling him non-too-gently up and towards the door. Lance unburied his head from Spot’s fur to watch them leave.

            “Be gentle with him!” Pidge called with an evil gremlin laugh. Lance turned his head away miserably. Training? Yeah right. They probably got all hot and bothered listening to everyone talk about dirty things and were going to do dirty things of their own.

            “As enlightening as this conversation has been, I think I should get back to the command deck,” Allura said. She stood and moved towards the door, Coran automatically standing to follow her.

            “I should go start on dinner,” Hunk added.

            “I’m going to bring this back to my room,” Pidge said, gesturing towards whatever thing they’d been messing with.

            Soon the room was empty save for Lance and his friends. As soon as the door closed he made a miserable sound.

            “They probably left to have _relations_ ,” he said.

            “I’m sure they’re just working out some… stiffness,” Frank replied.

            “Who are you kidding? Have you seen them both? They are ridiculously hot and why wouldn’t two ridiculously hot people get together?”

            “Usually I don’t compliment you often because we need to keep your ego in check, but you are like walking sex on a stick,” Frank said. Lance shrieked.

            “Don’t say things like that! And it’s such a lie! Keith barely even looks at me. Everywhere we go he’s by Shiro’s side. They’re both perfect and I’m sure they’ll get married and have space babies and live happily ever after.”

            “One, I don’t think human biology allows for one of those things. Two, I’m pretty sure he looks at you more than you think.”

            “Tell me that you honestly don’t think those two are in a relationship,” Lance demanded. Frank hesitated. She knew how Keith looked at Lance, but she also knew how Keith and Shiro were together. They certainly seemed…intimate at times.

            “See!” Lance said when Frank hesitated a little too long.

            “That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless,” she said gently.

            “Yes it does. I’m not going to try and ruin someone else’s relationship. I need to get over this silly crush I have on Keith. There are plenty of aliens in the galaxy who would want a boyfriend who is a virgin and probably most definitely into bondage.”

           "And a prude," Spot added because he wanted to contribute to the conversation. 

            “You don’t sound convincing,” Click commented. Lance wilted just a little.

            “I have to be. Those two have been through hell and back and if being with each other makes them happy then I won’t do anything to jeopardize that.” He was noticeably more subdue this time.

            “Are you sad?” Spot asked.

            “Nah, I’m okay. I’m used to this by now. Even when I was still on earth no one wanted to date me because most the people my age couldn’t stand being around the immigrant with the accent who talked to much, flirted too much, and rarely made sense. I’ll be right as rain soon enough.”

            “Oh darling,” Frank cooed. She stood up and walked around spot so she couldn’t nestle up against him and pull Lance into her arms. “I would have sex with you in a heartbeat if you had breasts and a vagina.”

            “That’s gross and oddly comforting,” Lance murmured.

            “You know if you put on a skirt, tucked your dick away, and put some makeup on I still might be willing,” Frank said.

            “And you ruined it.” Lance tried to pull away, but the Amazonian didn’t let go.

            “Shhh. We’re cuddling right now.”

            “You just told me you’d have s—se—relations with me if I wore a skirt and hid my penis!”

            “I have no secrets from you! I was being honest!”

            “For two highly intelligent sentient beings, you’re both complete morons,” Click said.

            “But they’re ours,” Spot said. Lance and Frank melted.

            “Awww. That earned you more belly rubs!” Frank said. She abruptly pushed Lance away (and he would attest he sprawled gracefully and did not flop over) so she could start scratching Spot’s belly. The giant alien hound growled in contentment and rolled onto his back to provide better access.

            “That is true. You both tend to disgust me but I won’t let anyone else have you,” Click said.

            “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said,” Lance sniffled.

            “If you try to hug me I will dose you with my dust again.”

            “Please don’t do that. Last time I almost threw myself out an airlock because I was convinced I’d become one of the Voltron lions,” Lance said meekly.

            Click snorted. “That was actually rather amusing.”

            “I almost died!”

            “It was still amusing, and I had warned you not to hug me. Blue stopped you anyways.”

            “She had to because all of you were laughing too hard to stand!”

            “You were running around the hangar deck in your lion slippers and blue pajamas carrying a bucket of ice and shouting that you were going to freeze all of the Galra enemies!” Frank said.

            “I hate you all.”

            “No you don’t. You’re our precious, adorable little blue boy and we love you.”

            “Stoooop.” Lance was blushing again.

            “Quiznak I always forget how adorable you are when you get embarrassed.”

           

            And all was well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to reiterate, this will have a plot! Soon! I promise!


	3. I'm Still Curious...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The paladins go on a mission that leaves Lance with some questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took me so long. I got a cold, and it ended up lasting for two weeks. I had to start taking antibiotics, and I'm still coughing. This is what happens when you teach small humans for a living. They are little walking germ factories.
> 
> Anyhow, here's another chapter of ridiculousness (and a teeny bit of angst cause I can't control myself). 
> 
> I want ya'lls input on something too so read the end note and let me know!

 Chapter 3: I’m Still Curious…

 

            “No.” Frank said. Allura looked over at the Amazonian and furrowed her eyebrows.

            “I’m sorry Frank but I wasn’t actually asking for your approval.”

            “Still no. Too dangerous.”

            “Lance is a paladin of Voltron. He and all the paladins must undertake dangerous missions at times.”

            “Yeah but you said I can’t go.”

            “They need to infiltrate quickly and get out. I don’t mean to be rude, but you, Spot, and Click are somewhat conspicuous.”

            “We are perfectly capable of infiltrating!” Frank said. She flicked maroon hair out of her face and crossed her arms under the vast expanse that served as her bosom. She was wearing something akin to a bodysuit that was mostly just hardened strips of leather woven together. It was wholly unpractical and what she spent most of her time in. On top of it all were bioluminescent markings that made her light up pink in the darkness.

            Beside her Click hovered disinterestedly, their giant rainbow hued butterfly wings fluttering fast enough to create a colorful blur of color behind them and emit a constant droning noise. Their large, pure black eyes were set into a snow-white doll face, framed by long, pitch-black hair.

            Spot was sitting pretty just behind them with one leg thrust in the air while he loudly licked his privates clean. Everyone mostly tried to ignore it, but it’s hard when the alien in question was the size of a Clydesdale horse and sitting smack in the center of the room.

           Together the trio was about as inconspicuous as a neon billboard advertising a gay bondage furry Satanist nightclub in a small rural Christian town in the southern United States.

           “I… am sure you are all very talented infiltrators,” Allura said diplomatically. “But the bigger issue is that you have not participated in any group trainings along with the other paladins. All five of them have spent the better part of a year learning to work and fight together. Adding new elements could be dangerous for everyone.”

          “Lance!” Frank said, turning to the blue paladin and planting her hands on her hips. The boy in question immediately put his hands up and stepped back so he was partially shielded by Shiro. The black paladin seemed a little nervous about this new development. He wasn’t sure how he felt about being the first line of defense between Frank and Lance if the pink alien decided she needed to get to the blue paladin.

            “I’m not going to argue with Allura,” Lance said.

             “Oh so you’re more scared of her than you are of me?”

             “Yes,” he responded immediately. Frank’s face went purple with anger.

             “Fine! We’ll stay here and when you get your virgin ass captured and are gangraped by a mob of horny Galra I’ll just shrug and say ‘Well I told you this would happen’ and not even lift a finger to help!”

             “I won’t let that happen,” Keith snarled. Everyone looked at him. Lance graced him with a beatific smile that had the red paladin squinting from the sheer brightness of it.

             “See Frank, the team’s got my back. Keith hates me and even he says he’ll watch out for me!”

             “Wait, what? Lance, I don’t…” Keith said, suddenly startled.

             “They better or Spot will rip them apart!” Frank interrupted. The rest of the paladins shifted and exchanged nervous glances while Lance practically melted.

             “Aw, Frank, that’s so sweet. You don’t have to worry, I’ll be okay,” Lance said. The gaze of everyone in the room shifted from Frank to the blue paladin, somewhat astonished at how he found the threat of dismemberment to be a sweet sentiment.

             “I don’t like the idea of you down there without me. You’re just so vulnerable and you’re always putting yourself in harm’s way. I don’t want anyone to take advantage of you.”

             “Like I said, the team’s got my back. We’re the paladins of Voltron! Nothing can keep us down.”

             Frank’s lips quivered and she stepped forward, shoving a startled Shiro out of the way none-too-gently to wrap Lance in a bone-crushing hug.

             “You had better take care of yourself baby blue!”

             “Oh for quiznaks sake, you two have this argument every quinaking time Lance goes off without us!” Click said.

             “I know you’re just as worried as me!” Frank said without letting go of the blue paladin, who was starting to squirm uncomfortably, probably due to lack of air considering how Frank was crushing him.

             “He’s ninteteen deca-phoeb’s old. He can take care of himself,” Click said.

             “Everyone wants to steal Lance's virginity so he needs to be protected,” Spot added, removing his face from his ass long enough to add in his own input before getting back to it.

             “Oh my GOD,” Pidge said while Keith made a strangled sound and Shiro choked a little. 

             “Frank, I think you should let Lance go now,” Shiro said gently when he noticed the younger boy’s face going somewhat blue. Frank immediately opened her arms and Lance staggered and probably would have fallen had Shiro not reached out to steady him. Frank scowled down at him.

             “See how fragile he is!” Frank declared.

             “This happens to most people when you suffocate them,” Pidge said.

             “Well, now that this matter has been settled, paladins please go prepare for the mission. Frank, Click, Spot, you are welcome to remain on the command deck here with us to monitor progress.”

              The paladins shuffled out, Shiro whispering a quick ‘are you okay?’ to Lance as they went. Lance just laughed sheepishly and nodded while Keith glared daggers into the backs of them both. Frank stared after them looking as if she were sending her child off to his death.

 

\---

 

            “Lance stay back, cover the hallway!” Shiro said.

            “Right!” the blue paladin replied. He stopped running, turned, and dropped to one knee. His bayard came up and he sighted down the hall, ready to fire at any Galra who came close.

            The sound of their heavy breathing filtered through the comms in his helmet, but they stayed otherwise silent.

            A sentinel drone appeared around the corner. Lance didn’t even take a breath before he fired. A smoking hole appeared in the drone’s head.

            “Everything okay?” Shiro asked when the report of the bayard fire filtered through his comm.

            “All aces Space Padre.” Shiro chuckled at that but didn’t respond.

            “ _Mammaaaa, just killed a man. Put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger now he’s dead,”_ Lance whisper-sang to himself. He heard Hunk huff out a laugh which made him smile.

            “ _Mamaaa! Oooooh! Didn’t mean to make you cry! If I’m not back again this time tomorrow, carry on! Carry on._ ”

            “I don’t think now is the time for Bohemian Rhapsody,” Pidge hissed.

            “ _I never really knew that she could dance like this. She make a man wanna speak Spanish. Cómo se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa Shakira, Shakira_ , _”_ Lance sang instead.

            “I friggin love you,” Hunk chimed in.

            “Don’t encourage him!” Pidge said.

            “Okay, we’re at the control panel. Stop arguing. Pidge, do your thing.”

            “Got it.”

            “ _I'm on tonight. You know my hips don't lie. And I'm starting to feel you boy. Come on let's go, real slow. Don't you see baby así es perfecto_!” Lance belted out.

            A muffled snort came through the comms, then the sound of coughing as Keith tried to cover up his inadvertent laugh. A long-suffering but somehow still amused sigh came from their fearless leader. Hunk hummed along. Pidge snorted derisively. Lance kept singing about very honest hips.

            So into the groove he was that he didn’t notice the wall to his right open up revealing an apparently secret hallway. It wasn’t until the back of the massive galra soldier’s hand connected with the blue paladins head that he even realized someone was there.

            The blow sent Lance’s helmet flying and the paladin himself sprawling across the floor. He rolled in time to bring his bayard up and partially block the incoming kick. The force of the kick sent jolts up his arms and made his shoulders ache as the bayard absorbed the force.

            His rifle went flying once out of his hand the bayard turned back into its neutral state. Lance rolled and got to his feet, barely managing to dodge an incoming punch.

            The sharpshooter made a valiant effort considering the alien was as big as Frank but significantly bulkier, but the galra had him pinned to the wall by his throat only a few short dobash later.

            “Please don’t gang rape me!” Lance immediately shouted. Though the sound was a bit garbled coming from his compressed windpipe.

            “Wh—what?” the galra stammered. Tears welled in Lance’s eyes.

            “Just kill me quickly. I don’t want to be gang raped by a hoard of horny galra.”

            “What the quiznak are you talking about? I’m not interested in that at all,” the galra said. Lance finally angled his eyes up to look in the galra’s face, and the poor purple alien was hit with the full force of Lance’s ocean blue, tear-filled peepers. He gulped audibly.

            “Really?”

            “Yes.” The galra nodded frantically.

            “That’s so relieving. Thanks so much. Then can I go now?”

            “Sure go ahead.” He released Lance’s neck, then shrugged apologetically at the already bruising hand print at his throat.

            “Thanks a lot. No hard feelings.” Lance shot some finger guns at the galra then picked up his bayard and went for his helmet, moving smoothly and confidently. He was inches away from grabbing it when the galra finally seemed to come to his senses.

            “Stop!” he bellowed. He grabbed the back of Lance’s armor and shoved the blue paladin face first into the wall. “I don’t know what sorcery you just tried to do, but I won’t let you go.”

            “It wasn’t sorcery…” further protests died on Lance’s lips when he felt something conspicuously hard and very large pressed to his back.

            “Are you hard?!?” he shrieked.

            “I do not mean anything by it! You keep squirming and are pleasant to look at!”

            “You said you wouldn’t rape me!” Lance wailed.

            “I’m not! You are a prisoner, I have to restrain you.”

            “So you can rape me?”

            “I have no such plans!”

            “Then why are you hard?”

            “You keep wiggling!”

            “Of course I am! You have me pinned to a wall!”

            “Just stop moving.”

            “I don’t want my virginity to be stolen,” Lance cried loudly.

            “V—v—what?” the galra stammered. Lance just cried more.

            “Quiznak.” The galra let go of Lance abruptly and stepped back. Lance slumped down before turning to peer up at the hulking purple form.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Just go for quiznak’s sake.”

            “Really?”

            “Yes,” the galra snapped. Lance nodded but didn't stand up.

            “If it makes you feel any better, you’re actually very talented.”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah. I had no chance against you. You’re really good.”

            The galra looked down and his purple cheeks darkened further with a blush. He’s vaguely feline ears drooped a little and Lance’s eyes blew wide.

            “Oh my god you are adorable,” he breathed.

            “Lance!” a voice shouted from around the corner. It sounded like Keith.

            “You should go. Fast, fast! And get off the ship, we’re probably going to blow it up or something.”

            The galra, still looking embarrassed, just nodded and went back through the secret doorway just as the team rounded the corner. Lance was still slumped to the ground, something wet dripped down the side of his head and was probably blood, and there was a rapidly darkening hand shaped bruise at his neck.

            “What happened to you? Who did this?” Keith spat.

            At the same time Pidge said, “Holy shit are you okay?”

            “Language,” Shiro admonished. They rushed to his side, well most of them except Keith. The red pilot had murder in his eyes and was scanning the hallway for something to dismember upon seeing Lance injured and his eyes red from crying.

            “I’m okay. I made a new friend.”

            “Oh god not another one,” Pidge said.

            “This one’s not coming back with us don’t worry. He came out of a secret door in the wall and at first I thought he was going to gang rape me because he got hard while he was pinning me against the wall, but then he told me he wasn’t going to and was just hard cause I’m really attractive and was being too squirmy. I was really uncomfortable and started crying and asking him not to rape me and then he let me go and I told him he was really talented and then he blushed which was cute and left before you guys showed up.”

            “That story got wilder with every sentence,” Hunk deadpanned. Keith was now just staring at Lance with a mixture of shock, disbelief, and anger.

            “How are you a real person?” Pidge questioned quietly.

            “Right, well, I’m glad your new friend let you go. We got the data we need and should get back to the ship,” Shiro said after clearing his throat. He helped Lance up – the lanky boy swayed slightly so Shiro kept close to him. They were halfway back to their lions when Pidge abruptly stopped, horror on her face.

            “Quiznak,” she breathed.

            “What?” everyone asked in alarm.

            “We promised Frank that we’d look out for Lance,” she said. Everyone’s eyes flicked to the unsteady blue paladin. The side of his face was caked with dried blood, which nicely complemented the ever-darkening bruise that was spreading from around his temple. His lip was split from when he was slammed face-first into the wall, and the bruises around his neck were turning an ugly shade of purple. He looked wrecked and was the only one out of the five who had so much as a scratch, all because they’d left him alone to guard the hallway.

            “Shit,” Shiro said quietly.

 

\---

 

            “Frank please calm down. Nothing untoward happened,” Allura said. She was currently standing in front of the massive Amazonian and acting as a barrier between her and the others.

            “You left him _alone_ on an enemy ship! He’s a stars damned sniper and you all thought it would be a good idea to just leave him?!? He had no chance against a talented close range combatant!”

            “We didn’t know there were secret passageways on the ship. The schematics Pidge obtained didn’t show them. The only enemies that should have appeared should have been at a distance,” Shiro replied placatingly.

            “Should, should, should! I don’t care about what should have happened! He never _should_ have been alone! My poor boy had a big aggressive galra restraining him thrusting his cock against him while he was helpless! That kind of thing is only sexy when both parties consent and discuss hard limits, soft limits, dynamics, and safe words first.” Keith had no idea why Frank looked directly at him when she said that. He felt that there was an implication there but he was still too angry to decipher it. He was also totally not at all thinking about what it would feel like to thrust _his_ cock against Lance.

            Shiro sent him a questioning look when the red paladin violently shook his head to clear out those thoughts. Keith just averted his gaze and crossed his arms so no one would know he was thinking about having sexy fun naked time with the blue paladin who was currently looking like a goddamn snack suspended in the healing pod wearing one of those skin tight white suits.

            “You’re right, we made an error in judgment. It’s not something we’ll let happen again. I’m sorry, Frank,” Shiro said.

            “Do I tear anyone apart?” Spot asked from where he loomed behind Frank. Click was silent, but the look on their face was nothing short of murderous.

            “Not right now,” Frank said coldly. She turned to Allura. “You told me that I couldn’t go because it was too dangerous. You said that we’d mess up the dynamics of the team. Well looks like your team doesn’t give two stars about Lance’s place in the dynamic since they left him alone.”

            “They are paladins of Voltron. They will often be in danger and you cannot always be there to protect Lance. When judgment calls are made in the field they cannot afford you being there to question every decision that affects him. Today’s incident was unfortunate but you cannot keep him hidden away from all danger.”

            “We don’t want to,” Click said, their voice cold. “We just want to be assured that when he leaves with his team they will look out for him with the same care they look out for each other.”

            Suddenly everyone was very carefully looking anywhere except for at Click. Frank’s anger was almost easier to deal with than Click’s cold almost-accusation.

            “I understand you all are upset, but I stand behind the decisions that were made. You may care deeply for Lance but the paladins are not yours to reprimand.” Allura’s voice took on the ‘princess’ tone that suggested she didn’t want to hear any further arguments. Frank fixed her with a glare.

            “Fine. You all can leave. We’ll wait until Lance is out of the healing pod. It was be ‘just a small concussion’ to you, but we are more concerned.” At that Frank turned her back to the other members of Voltron so she could watch Lance in the pod. She was certain he would be just as upset as she was when he got out.

 

\---

 

            “You’re so dramatic!” Lance said. “That galra ended up being very nice!”

            “He assaulted you!”

            “Well I mean we did break into his ship.”

            “He got a boner and rubbed it all over you. In some cultures that’s considered sex!”

            “Right, about that. It was huge, like, really huge. I wonder if all galra are like that,” Lance said. The other castle residents in the common room with them groaned.

            “Darling I’m not sure that’s the issue you should be focusing on.”

            “I know but it was like, super big.” Suddenly Lance’s face lit up with realization. He whipped around to face Keith who visibly recoiled at the sudden attention.

            “Keith! You’re part galra! Are you super big too?” Lance’s face was positively sparkling in anticipation.

            Shiro began violently coughing. Keith’s face went red, then kinda purplish as he forgot how to breathe. Allura pressed a hand to her mouth. Hunk once again just laughed and shook his head. Coran tried to hide just how interested he was in the answer to that question. Pidge, however, shrieked, pulled her hood up and pressed her hands to her ears and began humming “la la la, not listening to this bullshit. La la la.”

            Shiro, the poor dear, was too shocked to admonish her for the language.

            “I… that’s. I mean… what? Why’s it so hot in here? I can’t breath.” Keith said. Lance’s face turned concerned.

            “You okay buddy? Did you get hurt on the mission? Are you sick? Why didn’t you tell anyone? You should go to the healing pod. You look really red. Do you have a fever? Look at you, you need to take care of yourself.” Lance kept rambling concerned admonishments as he bustled over to Keith and began feeling his forehead – all questions about the average galra dick size were forgotten. Keith just froze, unable to move away or do anything.

            Meanwhile Frank was shaking so hard from her silent laughter that it made the couch shake. Click looked on with their normal disgust, but there was the faintest glimmer of amusement on their face.

            “Lance,” Frank said, voice strained as she tried to keep her voice normal. “I think Keith has just had a _hard_ day. He probably just needs to go back to his room and _thrust_ himself into bed. Although he should make sure to shower and wash his body with firm _strokes_ so he doesn’t get the bed dirty.”

            “Why are you talking so strangely?” Lance asked, face pinched with confusion.

             “I think I need to lie down,” Keith wheezed. He stood up abruptly and pushed past Lance.

             “You don’t look good. Let me walk you.”

             “No!” Keith shouted, but then he softened his town somewhat when Lance flinched and looked a little hurt. “I can go on my own.”

             Lance just nodded and watched Keith leave, his expression reminiscent of a kicked puppy. Shiro waited a moment before getting up and following him out. Lance looked even more abused puppyish when he saw that.

            “Lance, my love,” Frank said.

            “Yeah?” Lance turned to her, but his eyes and voice were lifeless.

            “This might not be the time, but I need to say that you bring my life such immeasurable joy.”

             Lance’s eyes teared up without warning and he gave a wobbly smile.

             “Really?”

             “Yes.”

             “We love Lance the most,” Spot said. He’d been dead asleep during most the exchange, but he could always wake up to tell Lance how much he loved him.

             “I love you guys to,” Lance said. “I’m still curious if all galra are so huge though. I’ll ask Keith again when he’s feeling better.”

             “Oh my fucking god,” Pidge said. No one bothered to correct her language.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear Keith is going to have a stroke with all of Lance's suggestive comments. hehe.
> 
> Coming up next chapter... who knows! I was playing with the idea of turning this into a Shklance fic instead of a Klance fic but I haven't decided yet, I could honestly go either way. What do you all think? Klance or Shklance? I'll leave it up to you darlings to decide! Let me know in the comments! The plot's going to start appearing somewhat soon so I have to make a decision, haha. 
> 
> Love you all!
> 
> P.S. I know Lance's character is slightly OOC. I'm certainly talking liberties in the name of humor. Please forgive me.


	4. …How? Just… How?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Blades of Marmora visit the castle and everyone learns something surprising about Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof this took a long time to get out. Got sick. Then the holidays came around. Got sick again while on vacation. I wrote this chapter in the middle of the night because my head is too stuffy for me to sleep. 
> 
> I'm a mess. Here's some life advice for you. Never work with children. They are plague bearers and their ridiculous cuteness barely offsets the pain and misery they cause when they get you sick every other week. 
> 
> Funny story though, I accidentally called one of my students "Lance" like, four or five different times before vacation.
> 
> Uhm, this chapter has a little bit of angst because I can't help myself. The humor might be lacking because my stupid sick brain is fighting me. Sawry!
> 
> And the results of the poll from last chapter were in the majority to keep things Klance so that's how it's going to stay! For those of you hoping for some Shklance, have no fear! I'll probably write a Shklance fic soon and let ya'll know.
> 
> For this fic though, how about some Shatt? There's lots of fun stuff I can do there, haha!

            “The Blades will be here any moment. These discussions are important so please, all, be on your best behavior,” Allura said. Everyone was standing in the hangar bay waiting for the Blade of Marmora ship to dock, including Click, Spot, and Frank. Those three, along with Lance, studiously avoided Allura’s gaze even though she seemed to be looking right at them when she spoke about behavior.

            “Of course, princess,” Shiro answered for them all. He also looked at the foursome when he spoke.

            “Princess.” Coran’s voice echoed over the speakers in the hangar. “The ship of the Blades of Marmora is docking now.”

            “Thank you Coran.”

            A moment later the doors cycled and then a group of seven blades were walking in, all masked except for Kolivan who headed the group. He stopped in front of the princess and inclined his head, but his face remained stern and impassive.

            “Kolivan, we are happy to receive the Blades on our ship once again.”

            “Princess Allura,” Kolivan acknowledged. He also inclined his head and repeated his stern acknowledgements to the rest of the paladins. Until he got to Lance. When his gaze shifted to the blue paladin, Lance smiled and waved happily.

            “Hi Kolivan. Looking delicious as always,” Lance said, following his statement with a wink and some finger guns. Allura looked horrified and Shiro looked sick to his stomach.

            “Kolivan I’m sorry fo—“ Allura trailed off and her mouth just hung open because instead of seeming affronted by Lance’s behavior, the leaders of the Blades actually smiled and waved back.

            “Hello Lance,” he said.

Frank was worried that the other paladins were going to give themselves whiplash with how violently their heads snapped from looking at Kolivan, to Lance, then back. She didn’t actually care all that much, but it was highly amusing to watch their utter shock.

            As usual, Allura recovered first. Her mouth snapped closed with a click and her diplomatic mask was still in place.

            “Right. Well, if you’ll follow me to the conference room we can begin discussions.”

            With that, the princess turned and left the room. The rest of the group followed silently, their eyes boring into Lance’s back as they went.

            They didn’t immediately begin discussions and instead spent most of the first meeting comparing and sharing information. Once everything was all said and done and the Blades retired to their rooms, six pairs of eyes turned to Lance in eerie synchronization.

            “Why did Kolivan smile at you?” Keith demanded. Lance furrowed his eyebrows and shrugged.

            “What do you mean ‘why?’”

            “What Keith means is that you seemed quite friendly with Kolivan. Our interactions with the Blades have been limited so it was simply surprising. They’ve also always treated the rest of us rather coldly,” Allura said in her usual diplomatic way. She was pretty adept at tempering the paladins.

            “Oh well, it’s not just Kolivan. The first time they were here I got to talking with them. They’re all really cool and we became friends.”

            “How? Just… How?” Pidge said.

            “I’ve periodically been leaving to train with them since that first meeting and have spent the most time with them out of anyone, and even I wouldn’t say we’re friendly with each other. Sometimes they almost seem upset with me,” Keith added.

            “It wasn’t hard!”

 

\---

 

_Many months earlier, the first time the Blades were at the Castle of Lions after Keith went through their trials and got the shit beat out of him_

            Lance always considered himself a lover, not a fighter. Sure he had been training to be a fighter pilot, but that was because flying was his first love and always would be. He also liked going real fast, but on earth there really wasn’t anything to fight. Most the world had been at peace so fighter pilots didn’t really need to fight anyone.

            Now he was fighting a ten thousand year old intergalactic war and piloting a sentient blue robot lion spaceship. Still, killing wasn’t his favorite thing to do. He was good at talking his way out of situations and unless his friends were in danger, that’s what he would continue to do.

            So it was a little out of character for him to be stalking through the hallways with murder in his eyes, but he couldn’t help it. Keith and Shiro had gone to the Blades for information. Then Red had a MASSIVE freakout, then they returned to the ship with the blades, but Keith was beat all to hell.

            They’d said some bullshit about “trials” and proving some sort of something stupid. Lance hadn’t cared. All he knew was that the guy he was kinda sort of majorly crushing on returned so injured and exhausted that he had to go into a healing pod. The only bright part of the situation was the amazingly sexy black Blade of Marmora suit Keith came back wearing.

            Of course Keith had been seriously injured so it didn’t turn Lance on until a couple days later when all had been resolved and his mind conjured the imagine. Of course then his traitorous body got super hard and he’d had to then take care of that.

            But back to Lance stalking through the hallways. Shiro and Keith had gone to the blades offering peace and an alliance against a common enemy, and they’d put the red paladin through hell. He was going to find their leader, the totally Daddy worthy galra named Kolivan (it was Frank’s fault that Lance thought ‘daddy’ whenever he saw the cool as ice BoM leader. She’d said he was daddy material and now Lance couldn’t get that out of his head), and then he was going to threaten him in every way he could think of to make sure he never hurt Keith like that again.

            He ended up finding Kolivan in one of the mostly unused common rooms along with a couple other Blades.

            When Lance entered, Kolivan’s eyes, and the faceless masks of the other BoM members, turned to him. Lance didn’t let himself be intimidated. He marched up to the stern Galra and poked a finger in his chest.

            “Listen here buddy, I know you’re some bigshot super attractive leader of secret Galra society, but Shiro and Keith went to you guys to try and form an alliance. I don’t care about your “trials” or whatever. All I care about is that one of my teammates came back hurt. The princess and everyone else might have forgiven you, but I haven’t. Friends don’t nearly kill each other just to prove themselves.”

            “The Blades of Marmora are not friends with the paladins of Voltron. Our alliance is necessary to take down Zarkon, nothing more.”

            “Nu uh. Nope. That’s not how Voltron works. You sign up with us, we’ll risk our lives for you. That makes us friends, and the other paladins are my family. If you do anything to hurt any one of them again, I’ll do everything possible to make sure you never get help from us again.”

            “You do not understand how the Blades operate.”         

            “You’re right, I have no idea which is why I don’t trust you. Keith could have _died_ all because you were trying to prove a point.”

            “Our organization only survives because our members operate independently and with absolute secrecy. If a member falls behind they are left behind. We must give our lives to further our cause and make the sacrifices others cannot and will not. We do not take those sacrifices lightly. Keith appeared before us carrying the blade of one of our members. All we Blades have is our dedication to our cause, and our blades are a symbol of that. If his blade had been stolen it would have been an affront to everything we stood for. You may think our trials harsh, but he was adamant that he prove himself and his honor and to do that he had to be pushed to the very edge of his limits. You may not understand it, but he did.”

            “He had to nearly sacrifice himself to prove his honor. You all sacrifice yourselves to further your cause. Why is everyone always trying to sacrifice themselves?” Lance asked, frustration evident in his voice. He ran a hand through his hair and paced a few steps away from Kolivan.

            “This is a war, paladin. Sacrifices must be made in war.”

            All the wind left Lance’s sails and he slumped onto one of the couches.

            “So you just have to knowingly send your people to their deaths, and you’re okay with it?”

            “We aren’t okay with it. We mourn every death, but we do what is necessary.”

            “That really blows.”

            “It does.”

            “Are all you guys really okay?” Lance turned his face to look back up at Kolivan. His expression hovered somewhere between abandoned puppy and lost child. The combination was somewhat devastating and the BoM leader couldn’t help but soften.

            “We are strong.”

            “Yeah you guys seem really tough. I don’t know if I’m that tough though. I mean, I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Red went crazy. I knew something was wrong with Keith and I didn’t know what I was going to do if we lost him and his stupid perfect mullet and his awesome body and amazing flight skills.”

            “You care about the red paladin a great deal?”

            “I mean… yeah I guess. Like I said, the paladins and Coran and the princess are like my family.”

            “It seems like you feel something more for young Keith.” Kolivan had no idea why he was saying this. The blue paladin was disturbingly easy to talk to.

            “I… uhm, well. Sort of? I guess?”

            “Would you like to tell me about it?” the Galra asked. Lance nodded and against his better judgment, Kolivan sat down.

 

_Three vargas later_

            “And then he got all upset because I didn’t remember this bonding moment. I got blown up! I barely remembered waking up and shooting that guy, but he expected me to remember him cradling me in his arms _after_ I passed out. He’s so unreasonable. I mean trust me, I have about a dozen fantasies that start with Keith cradling me in his arms so that is definitely something I wanted to remember!” Lance said.

            “He does seem quite hot headed,” the galra sitting in front of Lance said. He was holding very still while Lance wound his mass of purple hair into a complex braid. Two other Blades were stretched out prone on the couches with face masks on and space cucumber slices on their eyes. Their hair had already gotten Lance’s treatment.

            “Why not just tell the red paladin how you feel?” Kolivan asked. He was sitting beside Lance, fingers running over the tail of the complex braid that had been made of his hair, wondering how he’d gotten to this point. He and his Blades were supposed to be resting or strategizing, but instead they were gossiping and pampering themselves with the blue paladin of Voltron. It seemed like magic how the young human could steer conversations where he wanted them to go.

            “Are you crazy? Keith hates me. He only tolerates me because Blue chose me as her paladin.”

            “Why do you think he hates you?” one of the prone galra to the right asked.

            “I mean he’s always criticizing me and telling me everything I’m doing wrong, even when I do something right for a change. I used to pick fights with him a lot just so he’d acknowledge my existence, but after Frank, Click, and Spot showed up he acts like I’m not even there and is always making excuses to leave the room when I'm in it.”

            “Your friends are rather terrifying,” said the other prone Blade.

            “Yeah,” Lance said with a smiled, “but they’re super awesome. They love me even if everyone else only tolerates me.”

            “Tolerates you? You said the others were like your family,” Kolivan said.

            “Well yeah, they are to me. I’d give my life for them, but to them I’m just kind of a seventh wheel. All I’m good at is shooting and if Blue found someone she like better they would drop me in a second.”

            Lance’s statement was followed by silence, while the blue paladin himself flinched when he felt sharp claws press into his mind. That was Blue’s way of admonishing him for saying stupid things.

            “Each and every blade is essential. There is not one of us who feels as if their role is not important. It isn’t right that your team has made you feel that way,” Kolivan said.

            “Oh it’s fine! I get it, I’m kind of annoying, I talk way too much, and I don’t have many talents. Even if some day they drop me, I still have Frank, Click, and Spot. They’ll never leave me.”

            “If Voltron ever casts you out, come to the Blades. We do not operate the same as your current team, but you will have a place with us,” Kolivan replied.

            “I thought you had to be Galra to join the Blades?”

            “There are always exceptions.”

            Lance turned his beatific smile to Kolivan.

            “Thanks. Sorry I threatened you earlier, you are all actually pretty cool.”

            Once again surprising himself, Kolivan returned the blue paladins smile.

            It was at that point that the door to the common room whooshed open. Frank took one step through and then stopped. All eyes in the room turned to her, the two prone galra removing the space cucumber slices first and sitting up.

            The silence stretched while Frank’s eyes (and probably Spot’s and Click’s since they were right behind her) took in the scene. After a long moment she turned to Click.

            “Did you dose me with your dust?” she deadpanned.

            “Of course not,” Click spat.

            “So this is actually happening?”

            “Why do you always ask useless questions?” the butterfly fairy responded. Frank ignored the scathing tone and turned back to the room.

            “Lance,” she said, her tone still flat, “watcha doin’?”

            “Uhm, talking?”

            “With the Blades of Marmora?”

            “Yeah?”

            “Why?”

            “I don’t know?”

            “Why do you keep responding to all my questions in question form?”

            “You’re scaring me?”

            “Right,” Frank said. Spot chose that moment to shove past Frank and into the room. He hopped down the stairs and circled around the couch. Everyone watched him. He went right up to Kolivan and examined him for a moment, then his eyes flicked to the empty couch next to him. Without saying a word he put his front paws onto the couch, then hefted the rest of himself up.

            “Spot, buddy, I don’t think there’s enough room right there,” Lance said. Spot ignored him and stood awkwardly in the too small space, then finally he stepped over Kolivan’s lap with his front paws then plopped himself down on the BoM leader’s lap. Said Galra let out a ‘oof’ of air, his hands going up. He looked, somewhat desperately, over to Lance, his face conveying his silent question of what he was supposed to do with a massive alien wolf on his lap. Lance just shrugged.

            “Now that he’s comfortable he’s probably not going to move,” the blue paladin said apologetically. The poor Galra was almost entirely obscured by Spot’s massive shape and cloud-like fur, but then his face shut down in resignation and he slowly lowered his hands to rest on Spot’s flank. The massive wolf creature let out a contented snuffle and proceeded to fall right asleep, still without saying a word.

            “Well I guess that settles that,” Frank said. She stepped further into the room and ushered one of the previously prone Blade members over so she could sit. She slouched and sent a flirty wink to the pretty Galra she’d sat beside, whose blush was thankfully obscured by the mask still on her face, before turning her attention back to Lance.

            “So, what are you talking about?” she said as Click flitted into the room and settled in their usual zen pose on the ground.

            “Boys?” Lance replied hesitantly.

            “Disgusting,” Frank spat. “Keep going.”

 

\---

 

_Present_

            “What do you mean it wasn’t hard? What did you do?” Pidge prompted. Lance looked to Frank for help, but the pink-skinned amazon just crossed her arms and smirked. It was her ‘you’re on your own’ stance.

            “Everyone loves Lance,” Spot supplied helpfully.

            “Or they want to kill him,” Click added.

            “Or fuck him,” Frank felt compelled to add because she couldn’t resist an opportunity to make Lance blush and squirm by using vulgar language. And he didn’t disappoint as he did indeed blush and squirm as soon as Frank said the word ‘fuck.’

            “So which one is Kolivan?” Pidge asked. She sounded genuinely curious.

            “Oh I’m sure he wants to fu—“

            “FRIEND! He’s a friend.” Lance said too loudly to cut Frank off. He shot her a dirty glare, but she just grinned.

            Silence rained. No one was quite sure where to go from there, except for good ‘ol Shiro and Allura who somehow always managed to keep their cool despite the hurricane that was Lance and his friends.

            “Lance I’m happy to see you’ve made friends with the Blades. They’re valuable allies,” Shiro said.

            “Indeed. Our alliance will be much more solid if they feel a deeper connection to Voltron. Your friendship could prove most valuable,” Allura chimed.

            “And with our upcoming plans to take Zarkon on head-on, we’ll need all of our close allies.”

            “Exactly. Now it has been a long day, we should all retire so we are ready for training bright and early tomorrow!” Allura clapped her hands to get everyone moving. Pidge still stared at Lance suspiciously while Hunk just smiled and patted Lance’s shoulder. Keith stalked by without a word, but Frank couldn’t resist teasing him.

            “I still think you should call Kolivan daddy next time you see him,” she stage whispered to Lance just as Keith walked both. Keith stumbled and his face went a hilarious shade of red, while Lance’s mouth just dropped open in horror.

            Once Keith recovered he all but ran away leaving Frank to usher the paralyzed-by-embarrassment Lance towards his room.

            “You’re evil,” Click said as they followed Lance and Frank out.

            “I know but it is so much fun. If you understood the concept of fun you’d understand.”

            “I know lot’s of fun things,” Spot said.

            “I know you do buddy because you’re the absolute best,” Frank cooed. Spot’s tail begun to wag happily as he walked. Lance didn’t notice because he was too busy trying desperately to disassociate the word ‘daddy’ from Kolivan’s image in his mind. He mentally begged Blue for some help, but the robot lion just laughed and laughed and laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see that? Did you?!? It was the barest hints of a beginning of a plot there at the end. And hooray! I've decided where this story fits into canon. It's going on a little before the end of season two.
> 
> Anyhow, your support on this silly romp of a fic has been amazing. I love you all and I'm glad you find it funny. 
> 
> Also, to re-iterate: yes, I know Lance's is a bit OOC in the story. I'm taking liberties in the name of humor, please don't hate me.


	5. Die in Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle planning with the BoM is delayed because of misunderstandings.
> 
> Pidge makes a brilliant discovery that she shares with the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took awhile to get out, sorry. Holiday craziness overtook me. 
> 
> Also, for those wondering about an update schedule, unfortunately I don't have one and don't plan on setting one. The reason is because I can't handle deadlines. I already have enough deadlines in my life and don't want to stress myself even more by adding another one to something that is supposed to be stress relief for me. Sorry!! 
> 
> Anyhow, the beginning of this chapter is Langst because I can't help myself. The second part is pure ridiculousness. Please enjoy!!

            Planning battle strategy with the Blades of Marmora was probably at the bottom of everyone’s list of what constituted a good time. It was way down at the bottom of the ‘Fun Things’ list, right next to hearing Coran talk about his bondage adventures – something he’d continuously brought up at random and inescapable times for weeks after Lance had apparently sparked some fond memories in the ginger Altean.

            It was obvious that the blades thought that the Paladins were a bunch of simpering, juvenile children playing war games who happened to pilot the most powerful weapon in the galaxy due to pure happenstance. The Paladins in turn thoughts that the Blades of Marmora were a bunch of uptight furries with dildos up their asses who got lost on the way to a convention.

            Well, okay, it was Pidge who thought that about the Blades, but when she told Lance she took his loud and very obvious snort of laughter to mean that he thought the same thing.

            What none of the Paladins clued into after that are the reactions to Lance’s interruption. The Blades whose faces weren’t covered by masks just gave him looks of fond exasperation before turning back to matters at hand. Allura gave him a look a little too close to disdain for some of the participants’ likings. Namely Frank who had forced her way into the meeting and was now glaring at the princess and thinking about all the ways she had learned to kill people back on her home planet.

            Yet, despite what the Blades thought of the Paladins and vice versa, and regardless of the murderous aura emanating from Frank, the meeting ended productively. Lance had caused small interruptions here or there with questioning comments, a good pun or three, and some expertly timed winks and innuendos thrown in for good measure.

            Allura was happy about none of these things. As soon as all began to disperse she made to move towards Lance but a cold glared from Frank had her stopping in her tracks a tick before Kolivan stepped into her path to ask her a quiet question.

            The next day went about as well, but tensions were running high. The fact that they were starting to finalize plans made the upcoming battle more real. Allura was obviously stressed, Shiro was stressed, Coran twirled his mustache obsessively but this wasn’t his usual obsessive mustache twirling, it was his stressed mustache twirling.

            And here and there Lance made a little comments just like before. Little jokes here and there. Little flirting here and there. Kolivan had figured out what he was doing the day before. His blades had also realized it not long after. Frank, of course, knew what Lance was doing. Pidge and Hunk figured it out at the end of the meeting the day before. If Shiro or Keith had figured it out he gave no sign but those two oblivious babies didn’t clue into a lot of things about Lance, and Coran had probably guessed what Lance would do before he even did it. The advisor was pretty good at translating the true meaning of Lance’s sometimes flippant seeming behavior.

            The princess was too wrapped up in her own head, in her own stress, to understand what the blue paladin was doing when he interrupted the conversation. For that reason, after Lance did something distracting halfway through the day two planning meeting, she slammed her hands against the table and stood up.

            “Lance if you cannot contribute anything productive to this meeting then leave! As it is now, your presence is nothing but a hindrance,” she snapped. Of course she regretted the words almost instantly. A hot stab of guilt and shame sliced her as she watched Lance’s carefree mask crack to reveal the insecure, devastated boy underneath.

            Then that emotion was gone, fluttering away in a tick before being replaced by the usual, but slightly less bright mask he wore every day.

            “Sorry Allura, I’ll head out,” he said. His voice sounded dull and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. He walked out of the room before Allura could stop him. Keith shifted as if he were going to get up and go after him, but a gentle hand on his arm and a slight shake of the head from Shiro had him settling back into his seat.

            Frank was practically vibrating with rage where she sat. The luminescent swirls that looped around her body were glowing. It was pretty, but with her people glowing markings meant something or someone was about to die.

            Before the amazon-like woman could speak, however, Kolivan’s voice cut through the tension like a knife.

            “Princess Allura I think we need to close this meeting for the day,” he said emotionlessly.

            “That’s not necessary Kolivan. We can now continue without any further disruptions.”

            Allura physically flinched back when Kolivan let out a derisive laugh. It was an utterly unexpected sound coming from the usually emotionless leader.

            “Without the blue paladin I’m afraid these discussions will be far less productive and I would rather not waste the time,” he said.

            “My apologies but I don’t understand,” Allura said. She was suddenly looking a little less the confident princess and more the young and inexperienced woman she was.

            “I don’t think it’s my duty to explain to you what sort of benefits your own people bring to the table. Maybe the other paladins can help to clarify.”

            With that Kolivan stood with the other Blades and exited the room. The conference room was quiet enough that they could have heard a proverbial mic drop.

            “Would someone like to explain what just happened?” Allura asked, looking pointedly at Frank. The pink alien just crossed her arms and glared. She wasn’t about to spoon feed the princess.

            “I’m sorry princess I thought you had figured out what our dear blue paladin was doing all this time. It was quite obvious so I didn’t think to point it out,” Coran said when it became obvious Frank wasn’t going to step in.

            “What—“ Allura started before Hunk cut in.

            “He was distracting us,” the yellow paladin said.

            “Yes I’m aware of how distracting he was being.”

            “Distracting us in a good way,” Hunk tried to clarify.

            “I hardly see how his distractions were a benefit.”

            “Princess,” Shiro interjected gently. “Lance was keeping us from fighting with the Blades and with each other.”

            “What? How?”

            “Lance is really good at reading people,” Hunk said. His eyes flicked to Keith and he grimaced slightly. “ _Most_ people. Like, he’s scarily good at it. It’s how he makes friends with just about everyone he meets.”

            “I don’t see how that is relevant.”

            “If I may princess, Lance’s interruptions weren’t random. He was able to see when tensions began running too high. There were many times you were on the verge of outright arguing with Kolivan, isn’t that correct?” Coran said.

            Allura wanted to deny it, but she found she couldn’t. She could recall multiple occasions during the two quintants of discussions where she’d been close to losing her temper. The Blades were just so stubborn, so stuck in their ways. They didn’t seem to have any faith in her or her paladins.

            “Perhaps,” she hedged.

            “So why didn’t you argue?”

            “I—“ Allura trailed off. “Oh,” she said softly after a few ticks.

            “Lance understood when you, or Kolivan, or Shiro, or anyone else was getting too upset or frustrated. When that happened he interrupted the conversation so that the tension would break. In your case, he drew your ire away from the Blades and onto himself. He’s probably the only reason discussions have gone as smoothly as they have so far.”

            “And Kolivan understood what Lance was doing so he bounced when you kicked him out,” Pidge said.

           “Oh dear. I’ve misjudged everything. I must go. I owe Lance an apology,” Allura said quickly.

            Frank finally spoke up. “You just humiliated him in front of almost everyone he knows. I think it would be better if you gave him some soace.”

            “Frank I am very sorry for my behavior—“

            “Let me stop you right there. I don’t own Lance so it means nothing if you apologize to me. You’re too stressed and I understand, I really do and it’s unfair that such young children have to bear such heavy burdens, but your stress is affecting your judgment. I understand what a difficult position you’re in, but try not to take it out on your team. Lance is an easy target cause he won’t fight back when someone lashes out at him – you should keep that in mind and learn your people better.”

            Frank said nothing else before walking out. There wasn’t much more to say after that so the other paladins awkwardly filtered out. Shiro and Coran stayed behind to speak quietly with the guilt princess.

 

\---

 

            Lance activated the door to the training room, ready to go to his bed and take a shower and think about Keith in his Marmora suit to take his mind off the absolute shitshow the planning meeting had become. He’d spent the better part of a varga blasting drones out of the sky and trying not to cry. He was a paladin of Voltron and sort of competent on a good day when Mercury wasn’t in retrograde (or was it Mars?), so there was no way he was going to start crying because Allura was mean to him. He was nineteen, not nine and plenty of girls had already made him cry when he was nine.

            The blue paladin shook his head, not fully understanding where even his own thoughts were going. He always wondered how normal brains worked like, what was it like to just be able to pay attention to things when you wanted to without your mind going off on an adventure every four minutes?

            And thanks to his adventurous brain he didn’t look up when he stepped through the newly opened doors, leading him to crash straight into the delightfully muscled red paladin. Less delightful was him falling and landing ass first on the hard ground. It was not quite the sore ass he sometimes thought about in the shower.

            “Shit Lance, sorry,” Keith said. Lance bit his lip hard to stave off the blush, before laughing airily. He also ignored how he shivered when he accepted Keith’s offered hand and got pulled upright with the help of the other boy’s impressive strength. He didn’t know if it was a Galra thing or what, but Keith was ridiculously strong and…

            Nope. No. Nope. Lance did not need to be thinking about how strong Keith was and how easily he’d manhandled Lance and how he could potentially do that to him in bed.

            Lance flushed and looked down. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts.

            “It’s okay,” Lance said, forcing his usual smile on.

            “I think Frank has been looking for you, or looking for something to murder. It’s hard to tell with her. And Click and Spot just looked like usual so I really don’t know.”

            “Yeah they do that. I’ll go find them.”

            “Wait,” Keith reached out and caught Lance’s arm before he could leave. A tiny little squeak that Lance hoped was inaudible escaped from the blue paladin at the contact.

            Keith dropped Lance’s arm quickly and went a little red. Great. He’d probably heard Lance squeak and got embarrassed.

            “What is it?”

            “Are you, you know, okay?” Keith asked. “After what happened in the meeting? Allura didn’t understand but the rest of us did, including the blades – you were the one keeping everything together. Allura was really out of line and she feels really bad about it.”

            And that was exactly the opposite of what Lance wanted to talk about so he deflected.

            “Wait you’re actually talking to me? If I start talking back are you sure you aren’t going to run away from me the second Shiro or Frank shows up?” Lance had meant the words to come out joking, but they ended up sounding a little more hurt than he’d intended. He couldn’t help it! Keith had taken to sprinting out of any room Lance was in and it was hard not to take it personally. It made him think up all kinds of ridiculous reasons, the foremost being that somehow Keith could read his mind and knew about how often he thought of him in that tight black Marmora suit.

            “Lance that’s not… I didn’t mean—“

            “OHMYGODWEHAVEAFANWEBSITE.” Pidge shrieking interrupted anything the red paladin might have been working up the courage to say when she skidded around the corner.

            “Slow down Pidge, what did you say?” Keith said. Lance, on the other hand, was shifting nervously.

            “WE.HAVE.A.FAN.WEBSITE.”

            “What’s that mean?”

            “Are you kidding me? It’s a website dedicated to Voltron and all the cool stuff we do!”

            “I’m sure it’s nothing!” Lance said a little too loudly. Pidge was too excited to notice his odd behavior for once.

            “Nothing? Lance we each have our own personal page!”

            “I still don’t get it. There isn’t exactly an internet out here so how do we have a website?” Keith asked.

            “There is though! It’s sort of like the deep web on earth. It’s a signal galaxy wide and if you find all the clues to access it you find a data page dedicate to us! I found this weird rabbit trail weeks ago and I finally solved all the clues.”

            “Coooooool,” he said unenthusiastically. He had actually discovered and figured out the hidden signal almost six months ago. But it wasn’t like he spent a lot of time on it. He’d visited maybe once since he found it!

            “Come on, we _have_ to go check it out.” Pidge said.

            “That sounds kinda fun I guess,” Keith said with a short laugh.

            “Yay.” Lance said quietly.

 

            In the common room Pidge had set up a portable terminal and all the paladins, plus Frank, were gathered around, although Allura and Coran were nowhere to be seen. They all huddled forward, except Lance who sat slightly back and fidgeted. This didn’t go unnoticed by Frank.

            Click was nowhere to be seen but Spot was also in the room, the former having absolutely no interest in the website, and the latter too big to fit in front of the terminal. Because of that he was sulking just off to the side.

            “Okay, here we go,” Pidge said. Her finger flew over the keys and then a picture of Voltron filled the screen.

            “Isn’t this the coolest? Hundreds of thousands of aliens access this page. They explain what Voltron is, what they’re trying to do. There are millions of comments from people offering support.”

            “This is so cool!” Hunk said in awe. They watched Pidge slowly scroll through comments. Some were in strange languages, but an algorithm on the page translated everything to the common language.

            “This is the best part though, we each have our page,” Pidge said. She panned back up to the picture of Voltron and clicked on the green lion to the side. A picture of Pidge popped up, a candid photo that looked to have been taken on Olkarion,

            “Go to mine!” Hunk said excitedly. Pidge did. There was his name, information, details about him, and comments from all his fans galaxy wide.

            “It gets better though,” Pidge said with a wicked grin. Lance immediately knew what she thought was so much better. Of course he knew. He’d visited the page maybe two or three times in the past so he was somewhat familiar with it.

            The green paladin clicked on Keith’s page and went right to the comments. Hunk leaned forward and furrowed his eyebrows.

            “What’s Sheith?” he asked.

            “It’s the ship name for Shiro and Keith!”

            “We don’t have a ship?” Keith phrased it as more of a question than a statement. “Are they talking about the lions?”

            “No, it means your relationship name! If someone ships you it means they think you should be in a relationship.”

            Pidge cackled when both Keith and Shiro flushed a brilliant shade of red. A small little distressed sound came from Shiro.

            “That’s… I… But we… what?” their leader said, at a loss for words for once.

            “Looks like there’s quite a lot of debate over this ‘ship.’ They seem to be arguing with another group,” Frank said casually.

            “Yeah that’s the Klance shippers,” Pidge said. “Keith and Lance.”

            Keith made a sound akin to a dying bird. Something between a squawk and a wailing death moan.

            “Oh man, these comments are heated. This person,” Hunk leaned closer, “The Tailor, is really getting into it with SheithIsLove69.”

            “The Tailor, huh?” Frank said. Lance didn’t dare breathe lest Pidge or Hunk remember the ridiculous comment he’d made what seemed like lifetimes ago back at the Garrison right before spectacularly failing in the simulator. It wasn’t a big deal though! I mean yeah he’d visited the page a few dozen times but he only left a few comments.

            “Yeah there are like, hundreds of comments between them. I mean a lot of the Klance shippers fight with the Sheith shippers, but those two really hate each other.”

            Okay so Lance had left more than a few comments, but that was because that bitch SheithIsLove69 was the bane of his existence. He was pretty sure she was only like, a fifteen-year-old Olkari, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be evil reincarnated.

            “Ouch, they get nasty,” Hunk said, still reading the comments. Shiro and Keith were still actively relearning how to breathe, but even they perked up a bit when Hunk started reading out loud.

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** Shut up you nunvil spewing craggle! It’s so obvious that Shiro and Keith are meant to be.

**The Tailor:** They are practically siblings you incest loving fur licker. Klance is the only obvious pairing!

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** There’s NO way Keith would be with the blue paladin! All he ever does is flirt with random aliens! Everyone says so! Keith deserves better than that. Not to mention the blue one is always with those three weird aliens. I pet they are all in some creepy bestiality-centered relationship. Keith does not need that kind of drama in his life.

           

            “Die in fire bitch,” Lance said.

            “What was that?” Keith asked.

            “My leg has an itch.”

 

 **The Tailor:** That’s so not true! The pink one is a LESBIAN for quiznaks sake.

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** So??????? The blue paladin looks girly enough, I’m sure a lesbian would go for him.

 

            “Hah, as if,” Frank said. “Not unless he magically grew a vagina and boobs.”

            “Argh!” Lance yelled. Hunk continued.

 

 **The Tailor:** There’s nothing wrong with looking girly! Girls are awesome! But the blue paladin is NOT girly. He’s very manly!

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** He’s just ridiculous and useless. Nothing like Keith and Shiro though. Oh my god they are so dreamy. Shiro is all charming and sturdy, while Keith is stoic and pretty.

 

            “Heh, hear that boys?” Pidge said. The red and black paladin both groaned knowing that Pidge was never going to let those words go now.

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** I bet that when they have—

 

            “Okay I think I’m done reading now!” Hunk announced, his face red.

            “Why?” Shiro and Keith asked. Frank leaned foreword and gleefully continued.

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** I bet when they have sex Keith begs. Like, he’s always stoic but when Shiro rams him I can just see him coming completely undone.

           

            Shiro and Keith choked and not-so-subtly moved about a foot farther away from the other. Something that, of course, went completely unnoticed by the blue paladin who was busy looking anywhere but at the screen.

 

 **RedLionAbyss:** KEITH IS A TOP.

 

 **SheithIsLove69:** HE’S A BOTTOM YOU KNOW NOTHING WHORE. That’s another reason Klance would never work. Keith is 100% a bottom, could maybe be a power bottom though in some cases, but the blue one is definitely a submissive bottom. I bet he’s not even a good sub.

           

            “Eat shit and die.” Lance said.

            “What?” Shiro asked.

            “I want pie.”

            “I think we all do after this,” Shiro said, sounding very tired and very uncomfortable.

 

 **RedLionAbyss:** You don’t know anything! Keith is a top for sure! He’s probably super dominant too! I agree that the blue paladin is totally a sub though.

 

 **The Tailor:** GAY PEOPLE SWITCH KAREN.

 

            “Okay!” Shiro said overloud. “I think that’s enough of these comments for now. It seems like our fans are a little overzealous, but I don’t think it’s productive for us to sit here reading about who should date Keith.”

            “Oh it’s not just Keith. They ship all of us. There’s a good number who ship you with Lance,” Pidge said. Shiro was going to have an aneurism if he got any redder.

“And there’s a small but dedicated group that ship Hunk and Lance or Hunk and Keith.”

            “Aww buddies, I love you both but that’s not going to happen,” Hunk said to Lance and Keith. The blue paladin couldn’t respond. Shiro and Keith had once again forgotten how to breathe.

            “What about you?” Keith couldn’t help but ask Pidge.

            “Most people have concluded I’m asexual and ship me with technology. They’re very wise.”

            “How did these computer people figure out Lance is very submissive? They are very accurate.” Spot piped up.

            “Spot!”

            “This is the best day ever,” Frank said. “The beginning sucked but this is the greatest thing that I’ve ever seen. I love living in this castle.”

            “I’m going to go take a shower,” Keith said.

            “I’m going to my room,” Lance said dejectedly after Keith left. He slunk out of the room, closely followed by Frank and Spot.

            “Laaaance.”

            “Go away.”

            “My love. My darling. My sun and stars.”

            “Don’t want to talk about it.”

            “My sweet blue baby. How long have you been fighting with teenagers about yourself?”

            “Not going to talk about it.”

            “Aww, come on. Don’t let that little brat get to you. I’m sure Keith is at least a switch.”

            “Keith is very dominant,” Spot said. Both Frank and Lance stopped and looked at the massive alien wolf.

            “How do you know that my dear?” Frank asked.

            “My kind sense those who are dominant and those who are not. It dictates our social structure.”

            “Well that is very interesting news.”

            Lance stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Spot’s neck. The wolf let out a rumble of contentment at the affection.

            “You know, I don’t think anyone except Click, Spot and I know how ridiculously smart you are buddy.”

            “It’s easier to appear as not smart. People say more in front of you.”

            “That they do. Now come on my two true loves, let’s go find our ornery third true love. I need to tell them every single thing that just transpired in explicit detail.”

            “No!” Lance said. Frank just cackled and sprinted away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you see that? We ALMOST got a Klance moment! Maybe Keith will finally work up the courage to say what he's been wanting to say!


	6. If You're Interested

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance makes a Freudian slip.
> 
> Kolivan drops a bombshell.
> 
> Lance opens up to Kolivan about feelings.
> 
> Lance drinks something that has an unexpected side effect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason I can't have nice things. I make a humor fic with five chapters of complete ridiculousness, and then I drench you in angst. *sobs*
> 
> Okay the angst isn't THAT bad (nothing compared to the most recent ch. in my other fic), but it's probably the angstiest chapter of this fic so far with some comedy thrown in. I hope you like it anyways!
> 
> Also, if there are funny scenarios you'd like to see don't be afraid to tell me! I can't guarantee all of them will make it in, but I love hearing your ideas and the plot of this crazy thing is pretty wide open!
> 
> Last, read the end note!

Dinner the day after the Meeting of Doom (as Lance liked to call it. Frank preferred calling it the Princess Bitch Fest), was a quiet, awkward affair. They’d decided to take a day’s break from discussions so everyone had just spent the day doing their own things.

            “Lance,” Kolivan said right on the cusp of the silence become utterly oppressive.

            “Yeah daddy-o?” Allura choked on her space goop and Lance immediately smacked his head. Why did he say that? Why oh why did he say that in front of every single resident of the castle, and five BoM members?

            Kolivan, the dear, took it in stride and proceeded. “A couple of my blades have expressed interested in courting you. With a battle looming the timing is hardly ideal, but they are seeking permission to proceed in trying to win your affections if you’re interested.”

            A loud clatter followed that statement as Keith’s spoon slipped from his hand and crashed into his bowl, but no one even acknowledge it, they couldn’t do anything except stare at the stoic galra who had delivered that universe shattering line without any inflection in his voice at all.

            “Seriously Lance does everyone want to sleep with you?” Pidge asked after.

            “Everyone does not want to sleep with me!”

            “On the past fourteen planets we’ve been to multiple natives have tried to sleep with you. One literally drugged you to try and get you to their room before Keith realized what was happening and beat the shit out of them,” Pidge said while studiously ignoring Shiro’s interjection of “Language!”

            “Not to mention the Galra,” Pidge continued. “The _enemy_ Galra who have literally let you go after they captured you because they are attracted to you.”

            “You’re seriously keeping track of all that?”

             “It’s practically a scientific phenomenon!”

             “Kolivan,” Allura said in a strained voice, talking over the bickering green and blue paladins. “With the looming battle between Voltron and Zarkon, I don’t think it would be wise for any courting to take place. It would be best for us all to be free from distractions.”

            “That is not your decision to make. The Blades of Marmora have been fighting this war for far longer than you and your Paladins. We have learned that there will never be an appropriate time for courting so we must pursue our affections quickly and without reservation to try and steal any little happiness we can.”

            “That’s beautiful,” Hunk sniffled, tears welling in his eyes.

            “This universe is being defended by fools,” Click hissed. Frank smacked them on the arm and shushed them.

            “Be quiet, don’t you dare ruin this for me. I need to see where this goes.”

           “Keith,” Shiro said quietly to the red paladin beside him. “Breathe.”

             Frank caught the whispered words and looked at the pale-faced Keith. The poor boy was completely frozen in his seat, just staring in horror at Kolivan with eyes wide and unblinking. It was actually a little creepy. She almost took pity on him. Almost.

            “Well I think that’s a fantastic idea. Galra bond-mark their mates, correct?” At Kolivan’s nod, Frank continued. “So Lance if you mate with a Galra and get the bond-mark then everyone would stop trying to sleep with you because they’d know you were already taken by a strong, aggressive Galra and ain’t no one got time to mess with that. For your safety and happiness I think a Galra mate is ideal.”

            “I didn’t know Galra did that. Can half-Galra do it to?” Pidge asked.

            “Almost anyone with Galra blood can bond-mark,” Kolivan replied.

            “Oh Pidge you beautiful little gremlin,” Frank whispered to the younger girl beside her. They shared a conspiratorial grin.

            “I…uhm. Mate. Like. Mate mate? Like, mate in the animal sense? Like…” Lance trailed off and made some vaguely obscene hand gestures in lieu of actually having to say the word ‘sex.’

            “Nothing like that would happen until all proper courting procedures were followed,” Kolivan said.

            “That is indeed true!” Coran piped up. “Galra take courting very seriously because they mate for life. Bond-marks are permanent and Galra can only bond-mark one person in their whole lifetime. Between two Galra they will both leave a bond-mark on their partner, but in the case of a Galra/non-Galra pairing, the former will leave the mark and imbue their partner with some of their quintessence, and then alternately pull out some of their partner’s quintessence into themselves to form the bond. It’s a very intimate affair and quite arousing from what I heard. Why, when I was a young chap there was a Galra commander who tried ardently to court me, but I was just a young buck and couldn’t bear the idea of being tied down even though she was quite the beautiful, powerful woman. I just felt there was too much more for me to experience. That actually reminds me of the time I met an Olkari senator who had invented anti-gravity handcuffs and she wanted someone to try them out on, but then of course that turned into a rather passionate…”

            “Well! I think for something that serious Lance should take the time to carefully consider. Of course we only want him to be happy but such things shouldn’t be rushed,” Allura said loudly.

            “Of course, but unless there is already someone who would like to claim the blue paladins affections there shouldn’t be hesitations,” Kolivan said. Everyone tried a little too hard not to look over at the statue-still red paladin. Frank could only fix Kolivan with an open mouthed stared. The BoM leader’s eyes slid over to her, and he winked. He actually fucking winked.

             Frank grinned. Pidge grinned. Together the three of them were a trio of manipulative little shits.

             Click, of course, also caught the wink. They just fixed Kolivan with a look of disgust before turning their gaze to Lance.

             “I think the subtext here is that you need to hurry up and fuck someone whether it be a Blade or another paladin.”

            “Click!” Lance shrieked.

            “I love you so much,” Frank laughed.

            “I think we should all head to bed for today,” Shiro said tiredly.

            “Agreed. Lance, please consider carefully.” With that Kolivan exited stage left with his Blades following close behind.

            Lance got up without a word and rushed after them leaving a ferally grinning Frank alone with the other paladins.

 

\---

 

            “So are they nice?” Lance asked. He was sitting upside-down on Kolivan’s bed. His legs were propped straight up against the wall while his head hung over the edge of the bed. Kolivan had expressed concern over the position, wondering how it could possibly be comfortable, but the blue paladin was uninterested in moving.

            “If you agree to allow the courting then you can find out for yourself.”

            “But I just… you know I like Keith.”

            “Yes I know about your feelings for the red paladin, but if you’re unwilling to confess to him then it is better for you to let them go and move on.”

            “I can’t confess. Keith literally hates me.”

            “Are you so sure of that?”

            “Well I mean he runs away almost every time we’re alone together. He hardly looks at me or talks to me. That’s not really how you act if you like someone.”

            “And you have a lot of experience in this?”

            “Well not exactly. But didn’t you say Galra are usually pretty forward?”

            “Yes but Keith is only half, and he didn’t grow up among us. If anything he would just tend to show some possessive behavior towards you.”

            “Well he definitely doesn’t do that.”

            “Are you certain? From the stories I’ve heard, he gets quite angry when anyone is forward with you.”

            “Yeah he gets mad at _me_. He’s always all growly and snappy and yells at me to be more serious or to be more careful.”

            “And yet you still like him.”

            “Just because he doesn’t like me it doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. A lot of good people don't like me. And Keith's  actually kinda dorky sometimes, he likes making jokes and can be pretty funny. When we were still on Arus he was really nice to the Arusians and even danced with some of them which was so super sweet. He’s really good with kids to. When we go on diplomatic missions he gets really awkward around the other adults, but he always talks and plays with the kids as if he’s more comfortable with them. I mean yeah he’s a hothead, but he’s also really nice and super talented.”

            Kolivan sighed. “Sometimes your naivety is endearing, and other times it’s simply frustrating.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “It means that if you were my kit I don’t think I would ever let you out of the den.”

            Lance pouted. “I can take care of myself.”

            “I know that, but you have a strange tendency to make others worry about you.”

            “Click said something like that to me before.”

            “Considering what I know of their people, it’s utterly astonishing that you’ve formed a bond with one. The Esseshi are solitary and incredibly hostile to outsiders – Click is probably just as baffled by their care for you as I am. Actually, all of your friends come from notoriously hostile races.”

            “You care about me?”

            “Inexplicably so.”

            “Oh.” Lance flipped over from his upside-down position stretched out on the bed instead so he could bury his face into the blankets and hide his blushing cheeks.

            “May I ask you something?”

            “Sure go ahead.” Lance said, but with his face pressed into the mattress it sounded more like “Ssssu ga aed,” but luckily Kolivan seemed to understand.

            “Does it comfort you to think of me as a father figure?”

            It was at that point that Lance decided he would never, ever, ever, tell Kolivan why he’d accidentally called him daddy and what the connotation of that was. It’s like, as delicious as Kolivan was Lance wasn’t attracted to him in _that_ way. He could just objectively admit that the BoM leader was attractive, and if he was being totally honest the big galra was actually more closely associated to a parent in his mind than a friend. It’s why Frank’s constant ‘daddy’ teasing was so jarring.

            “I guess… kind of. I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

            “You don’t have to apologize to me. You are nineteen deca-phoeb’s old and millions of light years away from your family fighting a ten thousand year old war. I am willing to fill a familial role for you if it’s what you need.”

            And suddenly Lance was having trouble breathing and his eyes burned.

           The blue paladin had allowed himself to cry exactly three times since becoming a paladin. First was after that first fight with the Galra, when he’d finally gotten to be alone in the castle , and he had to accept that it wasn’t just a ship he destroyed – that the vessel had been full of living breathing people who were dead because of him.

           The second time was after he’d been blown up – he’d emerged from the pod, assured the team he was alright, smiled and laughed and acted his usual self, bantered with Keith, then he went to his room and sobbed for hours.

           The third time was after he almost got vented out of the airlock when the castle went crazy. Well, more precisely it was after Allura had been forced to destroy her father’s AI and everything had settled. The stress of almost dying, and then having to watch Allura give up the only remaining connection she had with her father and her planet – it had punched him in the chest.

            After that Lance had felt a sudden and crushing sorrow as he realized that his family may never even get that kind of sad closure. He could die out there in the depths of space and no one would ever know. He’d just be another cold case in a police storage room on earth and his family would die wondering. More frightening than that was the prospect of failing, and the Galra eventually making their way to earth. If he failed it would mean he failed his family.

            But that was it. Those three times in all the time he’d been out there. He never allowed himself more because he needed to be the happy one. He needed to be the one making jokes. That’s what the team needed him to be. That’s all he was good for. He was the distraction, he was always happy and ridiculous so no one ever had to worry about him. He was their shoulder to cry on – he’d seen every other paladin break down, even Allura and Coran. He’d been there to comfort them and remind them that they were alive and that everything would be okay.

           None of them ever stopped to wonder if Lance needed comfort to because how could he? He was always smiling and laughing so how could anything be wrong? And that was okay. He needed to be useful.

            Then in that meeting, Allura had yelled at him and basically called him useless for helping in the only way he knew how. It had been too much but he had tamped it down. He needed to be strong for his team. He needed to be strong…

 

            A gentle hand rubbed up and down Lance’s back and he was jolted out of his own mind. It was then that he realized he was quietly crying with his face still smushed into the couch.

            “I’m sorry,” he said brokenly. Kolivan’s hand carded through his hair, the sharp fingernails lightly scraping his scalp in a hypnotic way. He’d stop at the back of Lance’s ears and apply pressure there, then keep going. When the big hand got to the back of his head, he’d firmly rub that soft spot at the base of his skull before moving back up and repeating.

“What are you doing?” Lance asked groggily. The motions of Kolivan’s hand we putting him to sleep – he’d never had an anxiety attack dissolve so quickly before.

            “It is a hypnotic technique. Many of our people suffer from battle fatigue – this is one of the ways we can calm them down when they have an episode.”

            “It works,” Lance slurred.

            Kolivan’s hand stopped and he pulled Lance upright so that the Cuban was forced to look at him kneeling right there in front of him.

            Lance swiped at his tear stained face, but the bigger man just grabbed his wrists gently and pulled them down to his lap.

            “Have you allowed yourself to be comforted since you began fighting this war?”

            “Frank, Spot, and Click help.”

            “You were out here a full deca-phoeb before you found them,” Kolivan reminded him softly.

            “It’s fine though. I’m fine.”

            “You’re not. I do not lead this team, and the Blades of Marmora have vastly different relationships to each other than Voltron, but we are also not children. We have trained for war since we were just kits, and we still suffer mentally from the stress of battle. You need the support of your team or else all of this will eat you away – your soul is far too gentle to be able to handle war without their comfort.”

             Lance shook his head quickly, his breath picking up again.

            “No, no they don’t need to know. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m really okay. I don’t want them to know when I’m having trouble because then they’ll stop coming to me when they’re upset and they need that. I have my friends who comfort me when I need but no one else has them and they _need_ someone to go to. I can help the others just by being my usual happy self. That’s enough for me.”

             Lance was crying again and he was so frustrated that he began swiping at his face again, but no matter what the tears wouldn’t stop. Kolivan patted him on the head before standing up and crossing over to a travel bag. He pulled out a bottle of something and walked back over.

            “Drink some of this,” Kolivan said, holding the bottle out.

            “What is it?”

           “An elixir we use – it has a calming effect. It’s another way we help our people overcoming their anxiety and flashbacks.”

            Lance just nodded and took the bottle. He sniffed it once curiously, then took a big gulp.

            Almost instantly his face, reddened, his muscle loosened, and the whole world took on a blurry quality. He swayed where he sat, then managed to drag his head up to stare deliriously at Kolivan.

            “Heeeeeeeeeeey, that stuff’s pretty cool.”

             “Lance? Are you alright?”

             Lance giggled. “ _Claro que si._ ’M fine. Totally find. I mean fine _._ This stuff is good. I’m _mucho mejor. Me gusta. Me gusta mucho."_  Then he began singing. _"Una mosca pared en la pared!_ ” Lance giggled and continue singing the silly little Spanish song while Kolivan looked on in astonishment.

             “I was not expecting this reaction. Maybe you should lie down.”

             “Nooooo way I feel great!”

             “Lance wait, no!”

 

\---

 

            Allura stood on the command deck analyzing data recently discovered by Pidge. It seemed to be some sort of Galra code but so far no one had had any luck discovering it’s meaning.

            She knew that she needed to get some sleep, but every time she lay down and closed her eyes she just replayed the scene from the meeting. She saw Lance’s face fall, and the subtle disapproval in Kolivan and Coran’s eyes. She couldn’t help but be mortified at her actions – Frank was absolutely right, she was stressed and frustrated and she’d taken it out on the first easy target. She would have never yelled at Pidge like that, or Hunk, or Keith, or Shiros, and especially not any of the Blades. She would have never publically humiliated anyone, but she had done it to Lance, probably because he was the only one her subconscious had decided she _could_ yell at, and she’d needed so desperately to yell at someone.

            Then at dinner this night he’d been almost completely silent and it broke her heart because she knew Lance needed to talk. He needed to socialize because it helped ground him, and she’d all but ripped that away from him. Until Kolivan had addressed him, Lance probably wouldn’t have said one word.

            The sound of the door to the command deck opening startled her from her thoughts. She turned, expecting to see Coran or maybe Shiro, but instead she was faced with Kolivan. If Allura didn’t know better she would have said the BoM leader looked almost…sheepish.

            “Kolivan, is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

            “Yes there is an… issue, with the blue paladin.”

            “What’s happened?” Allura asked quickly, anxiety welling in her chest. “Is Lance alright?”

            “He’s fine but I gave him some reven elixir because he was upset about some things and it seems to have had an unexpected effect on him.”

            “Reven elixir? From what I know of human biology, reven would cause them to become extremely inebriated. Their kind are very sensitive to ethanol derivatives.”

            “Will it harm him?”

            “It depends on how much he imbibed but reven is quite potent. Let us go gather Coran then see to Lance – he is better suited to assessing someone’s health.”

 

            Together the pair hurried to Coran’s room. The advisor was still awake and hastily slipped on a pair of white slippers before following them out into the hall. On the way they ran into Frank, Click, and Spot. Allura quickly filled them in on what had happened, and then the larger group was back on their way to Kolivan’s room.

            When they reached the door, the BoM leader activated the keypad and as soon as the door whooshed open they saw…

            “AND IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU! I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOUUUUU!”

            Lance was standing on Kolivan’s bed, he had stripped down to his blue boxer briefs, and was using the bottle of reven elixir as a fake microphone to sing into.

            “I take back what I said yesterday. Today is the greatest day of my life,” Frank said. She immediately took out her comm tablet and began recording.

            “Why the hell did you give him reven elixir?” Click snapped at Kolivan.

            “I was unaware that it would have this effect on a human.”

            “You never stopped to think that human biology would be different than Galra? Quiznak, you all are the universe’s only hope and you aren’t even competent enough to THINK before feeding someone elixirs.”

            “Oh hush darling,” Frank said.

            “I will not!” Click spat angrily. “Look at the state of him! If Lance done this on purpose I’d have no sympathy, but this oaf practically drugged him!” Click jabbed a finger at Kolivan.

            “What's all this commotion?” Shiro and Keith appeared around the corner, sweaty and red after a training session.

            “Uh,” said Allura.

            “You see,” said Coran.

            “Well,” said Kolivan.

            “I love my life,” Frank said.

            “Ugh,” Click said.

            “Kolivan has accidentally gotten Lance very inebriated,” Spot said, far more helpful than anyone else.

            “What?” Shiro said. It was at that point Lance dove into another song.

            “ _I see you windin' n' grindin' up on that pole_  
I know you see me lookin' at you, and you already know  
I wanna fuck you, fuck you, you already know  
I wanna fuck you, fuck you, you already know”

            “Wow, he’s actually saying the word ‘fuck,’” Frank commented. Keith on the other hand, who had stepped up to the door to see what was happening, had turned a very interesting shade of red as he stared at the almost-naked blue paladin belting out an explicit song while standing on Kolivan’s bed.

            “Someone should stop him,” Allura said quietly, but no one could tear their eyes away as Lance sensuously rolled his hips in time with the song. Frank, Click, and Spot of course knew that Lance was an incredibly dancer. No one else had known, and a quick glance down told Frank that the red paladin was deeply affected by the latino’s rolling hips and surprisingly smooth singing voice. It had to be uncomfortable, but Keith remained completely motionless as he watched Lance move.

            “He will pass out in about twenty ticks,” Spot said.

            “How do you know?” Coran asked.

            “I can smell it. The elixir is overwhelming his system.”

            “That is truly fascinating. Can you tell me how your scenting works?”

_“Cause I'm lovin' the way you shake your ass_  
Bouncin', got me tippin' my glass  
Normally don't get caught up too fast, but I got a thing for you.”

            Suddenly Lance stopped singing, he swayed precariously, then his knees promptly gave out and he slumped into an ungraceful heap on the bed.

            “Lance!” Keith said in alarm. He tried to rush forward but Frank beat him there. She scooped up the blue paladin like he weighed nothing.

            “Coran, will he be alright?” Allura asked worriedly.

            “He should be fine, it’s likely he just needs to sleep off the effects.”

            “I will watch him to make sure he is okay,” Spot said. Click rubbed the alien hound’s head affectionately but otherwise remained silent.

            “Thank you, Spot. Please come get me immediately if you scent anything unusual.”

            Spot nodded his big head but didn’t take his eyes away from Lance. He snuffled the boy’s hair and nosed along his body as he lay limp in Frank’s arms, but there was nothing alarming to smell.

            Frank noticed Keith hovering, and for once she decided not to mess wit him.

            “He’ll be okay. A little rest and Lance will once again be the paladin you know and love.”

            It was a testament to Keith’s worry that he didn’t even twitch at Frank’s mention of love. He just nodded.

            Coran ushered everyone off, and when they were gone Frank stepped closer to Kolivan.

            “His eyes are red and puffy, was he crying?” she asked quietly. Kolivan nodded once.

            “He’s overwhelmed. Please support him when I cannot – he will not go to his team.”

            “I know,” Frank sighed. “I’ve talked to him about it, but he refuses to tell them about his anxiety, or that he has nightmares about the people he’s killed. I think it’s a mistake, but I won’t force him.”

            “He thinks he’s a burden.”

            “We know,” Click said, “and nothing we do can convince him otherwise, but it’s also not something we can fix on our own. His team needs to wake the fuck up and realize that he’s chipping away pieces of himself to hold them up. They don’t even understand how much they rely on him.”

            “Easy my love,” Frank said softly. Click’s wings had begun turning an angry shade of crimson and red dust motes began to sparkle in the air around them – if they weren’t careful it could quickly become toxic.

            At those soft words, Click huffed an annoyed breath, but their wings slowed and began fading back into their normal rainbow hue. Spot took his eyes away from Lance just long enough to give a comforting lick to Click’s hand, then his attention went back to the sleeping paladin.

            Kolivan carded a hand through Lance’s hair once, then stepped back. He seemed a little bewildered, his expression more open than Frank had ever seen it. She wasn’t surprised though – Lance had that effect on people.

            “We’ll watch over him from here. Thanks for being with him while he cried, he doesn’t allow himself to do that very often.”

            “Of course.”

 

            They all walked away after that. Frank carried Lance to her room and set the boy gently on the bed. She quickly put on her own sleeping garments, then crawled onto the bed as well. Click and Spot joined a moment later. After some shoving, elbowing, grunting, and curses, they all settled into a big puppy pile with Lance in the center and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do I love making Lance hurt so much?? WHY? I'm sure this is the sign of some sort of mental disorder... or I'm projecting. Probably both.
> 
> Alright, for those of ya'll who wanted this to be a Shklance fic, I'm officially open to suggestions for what you want out of a Shklance fic cause I'm gunna write a separate one. I was jumping between a mafia AU, a 'Lance is a thief' AU, a mermaid (possibly mermaid with pirates but not necessary) AU, and maybe even A/B/O for any one of those possibilities. You can drop me a message on Tumblr (preferred cause it's easier for me to respond and I don't want to clutter up the comments on this fic) or you can just leave a comment here with suggestions for what you'd like to see out of a Shklance fic cause I'd love to hear what ya'll want! Just know that I'm submissive Lance trash so my fics are generally gunna go that way... haha.


	7. He Who Controls the Food Controls the Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance meets his suitors then gets into an argument with Frank.
> 
> Shiro wakes up from a nap and finds things in the castle have become dire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, after the angst filled last chapter, we're back to our regularly scheduled ridiculousness with very very very little angst. 
> 
> Also, this chapter is chock full of references. Seriously they are everywhere. I have no regrets. Kudos to whoever can point them all out. Maybe I'll give a prize or something, lol.
> 
> Thanks for all your support! I'm so glad you all are enjoying this wild little romp.

**Chapter 7: He Who Controls the Food Controls the Universe**

           

            “Wow.” Frank stood beside Lance, staring blank faced at the three Galra walking with Kolivan towards them.

            “Which one?” Lance asked.

            “I mean, all of them. Are you sure you still like Keith? Because I’d totally fuck the one on the right and it feels like you’re missing an opportunity if you reject her.”

            “I still like Keith, and please stop telling me about all the people you want to sleep with.”

            “Okay but I mean, are you seeing them? Because I have never felt sexually attracted to a male but even I can’t help but think ‘DAYUM’ when I see the other two.”

            “Yes I’ve met them before obviously. They were with Kolivan the first time he came here.” Lance said. “And I just agreed to meet with them so I could politely tell them I’m not interested.”

            “You’re making a mistake.”

            “Shut up.”

            “I’m serious. All three are like walking sex.”

            “Oh my god.”

            “Seriously do you see the way they’re walking? They might as well be fucking the air as they move.”

            “Frank!”

            “And that one on the right. Man, if she gives up when you reject her I’m going to bang her so hard.”

            “I hate you,” Lance whined, face turning an adorable shade of crimson.

            “Hey if you really have a daddy kink I totally think she still qualifies. I mean I much prefer to be the dominant one in bed, but hot damn I’d let her step on me.”

            “I don’t have a daddy kink! And you are disgusting.”

            “You sound like Click.”

            “Sometimes Click is right when they call people disgusting!”

            “Darling you know I only want to best for you, and I think you should accept their courtship. By the looks of it, all of them could fulfill all your dirty little fantasies.”

            “I don’t have dirty fantasies.”

            “You literally told every resident of this castle that you’re into bondage. You also told me that you masturbate thinking about Keith in his Marmora suit.”

            “That’s because I don’t think before I talk. I have no control over what happens when I open my mouth.”

            Frank looked over and leered. “Well I think all three of them could find lots of fun ways to silence you. How’s your gag reflex by the way?”

            “What does that have to do with anything?” Lance asked. Frank’s leer dropped. She put her hands into a prayer position and held them in front of her mouth.

            “You are too pure. It’s ridiculous. I’ve completely changed my mind, reject them all.”

            “What? Why?”

            “I don’t want you to be tainted. I have half a mind to lock you away in a convent where no one can ever touch you.”

            “It’s a little creepy how protective you are of my virginity.”

            “Do they do this often?” the female Galra asked Kolivan. They had gotten within hearing distance towards the end of the conversation and were just watching the exchange completely enraptured.

            “Hold conversations about people right in front of them? Yes. It happens quite often.”

            “It’s not creepy!” Frank protested as if the Galra hadn’t spoken.

            “It is,” Kolivan felt the need to add.

            “See!” Lance said, gesturing wildly at the BoM leader.

            “Kolivan is not part of this conversation! We were ignoring them.”

            “But he agrees with me.”

            “You can’t let people join our conversations just because they have valid input.”

            “That's how conversations work! And I can do whatever I want.”

            “You are a terrible submissive. Fine, go ahead and accept their courtship. Maybe one of them will be able to make you more obedient.”

            “You’re so creepy!”

            “Don’t yell my love, it’s not attractive, but I do think it’s time to be serious.” Frank turned her attention to Lance’s three potential suitors.

            “Whatever happens,” she said in a disturbingly pleasant voice, “if you hurt Lance in any way I will kill every single one of you in the most painful way I can think of.”

            “Kolivan has already issued similar threats,” the male on the left said. Frank looked at him and smiled, her sharp double incisors on full display. Her marks glowed faintly and there was something distinctly primal about her right then.

            “Whatever he could do would be tame compared to Spot, Click, and I.”

            The Galra who had spoken had to resist the urge to step back and put as much distance as possible between himself and the pink skinned Amazonian alien.

            “Okay well, as fun as threats are, lets just not.” Lance also turned his attention to the three potential suitors and graced them with one of his 1,000 watt grins. The one that lit up his entire face and made everyone who saw it all warm and fuzzy inside as if they were sitting in a pool of sun.

            “I don’t’ think I’ve formally met any of you. The name’s Lance.” He also shot them a couple finger guns for good measure.

            “Quiznak,” the male in the middle said softly.

            “Lance,” the female on the right said while stepping forward. She took Lance’s hand and looked down at him from her impressive height.

            “I’ve formally known you for less than five dobash, but if anything happened to you I would kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

            “Well that certainly escalated,” Frank said. She sounded a little bit disappointed at the female’s declaration, probably because her chances of screwing the stunningly attractive Galra woman had just diminished considerably.

            “Oh, that’s… uh, nice,” Lance said then laughed very, very awkwardly. “But I already have someone I’m in love with so I can’t accept your courtship.”

            “Please reconsider,” the male on the left said. “We’re aware of your feelings for the red paladin, but he has shown no signs of reciprocating. Please consider putting aside your feelings for him and allowing us a chance.”

            “I don’t even know you all.”

            “Kolivan has given us permission to stay aboard the castle ship until the battle with Zarkon. Before you reject us, please at least take this short time to get to know us,” the male in the middle said.

            “For now can I just know your names?”

            “Terek,” the male on the left said.

            “Efor,” the male in the middle said.

            “Nazra,” the female said.

            “And together they make a perfect ten!” Frank cheered before looking at Lance with a wide grin pasted on her face, waiting for him to praise her cleverness. Lance patted her on the arm.

            “You’re very clever.”

            “There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in your voice.”

            “I’m not going to feed your ego.”

            “I feed _your_ ego all the time!”

            “You do not! In fact you tell me all the time that you won’t give me complements to avoid doing just that!”

            Frank sniffed primly. “Well a true friend would complement me enthusiastically.”

            “I true friend wouldn’t threaten to send me to a convent because of her creepy obsession with my ‘V’ card.”

            “Okay one, did you seriously just call it a 'V' card? You said the actual word earlier! And two, stop calling me creepy!”

            “You _are_ creepy!”

            “This is the exact opposite of the complement I was fishing for! You’re tearing this family apart!”

            “If you three would like to withdraw your request for courtship I am willing to forget you ever asked,” Kolivan said to the three Galra suitors.

            “He is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen,” Efor said.

            “I would still die for him,” Nazra said.

            “I have no idea what is happening right now but I do not want to withdraw,” Terek said.

            “I don’t understand how he does this to people,” Kolivan muttered mostly to himself.

            “You know what, fine! Whatever! You are the most amazing person on the planet and I love you very very much!” Lance spat venomously.

            “Oh yeah? Well you are one of the three most important things to me in this whole galaxy and I would die for you!” Frank yelled back angrily.

            “Their words don’t match their tones. I’m still very confused,” Terek said.

            “Ugh!” Lance let out a frustrated yell before turning back to his three suitors.

            “Fine you guys can stay on the ship and try to woo me or whatever, but I’m never going to stop loving Keith!”

            With that said Lance stomped out of the room and didn’t look back. He kept stomping through the hallways, and stomped his way into the kitchen right up to a bewildered Hunk. Once his Hawaiian friend was in his sights, Lance’s posture immediately slumped and his limp stuck out in a pout.

            “Huuuuuuunk,” he whined.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “Frank and I got into a fight because she kept talking about sending me to a convent. And three super hot Galra showed up and are going to stay here at the castle and try to court me.”

            “You know I thought piloting a giant robot space lion was the strangest thing that would happen in my life, but somehow you manage to make everything weirder.”

            “Huuuunk,” Lance whined again. The burly boy sighed and ruffled Lance’s hair.

            “Okay. What do you want me to do about this?”

            “I don’t know, distract me?”

            “Well we don’t have any ingredients right now since we haven’t been able to go for a supply run, so I can’t cook anything. Uhmm.” Hunk scrunched up his face while he thought, and Lance could see when the metaphorical lightbulb turned on.

            “Lance,” he said with a wicked grin. The blue paladin took an uneasy step back.

            “Yeah buddy?”

            “The floor is lava.”

 

\---

 

            There was an unspoken rule among the paladins that Shiro didn’t know about. That rule was that when they noticed Shiro was tired, they made excuses to stop or end anything they were doing so the black paladin could take a nap.

            The reason for this unspoken rule was because Shiro had recovered most of his memories from his time with the Galra, and they haunted him. All the other paladins knew he had PTSD – they’d had to take classes at the Garrison to learn the signs and symptoms of it. Almost every night Shiro had nightmares, flashbacks sometimes, and it was well known that he didn’t sleep much.

            So in order to help Shiro, the paladins came to a unanimous decision – when their leader got tired they started “Operation: Get Space Dad to Take a Nap.” Also called the "Nap Protocol." It didn’t matter the time of day, or what they were doing. Shiro needed sleep and his space family would ensure he got it. Even Allura and Coran were in on it.

            If Shiro yawned, or lagged in training, Lance would suddenly have a migraine or Pidge would complain of something hurting.

            If it was during a meeting, Allura wrapped things up no matter where they were in the discussion.

            If it was during Voltron training out in the lions and they heard one of Shiro’s jaw cracking yawns over the comms or saw him yawn on the video feeds, Hunk would tell everyone he was getting queasy from all the flying and needed to head in.

            If it was during paladin bonding time, Keith would say he needed a break from all the emotional stuff for a while.

            Afterwards, if Shiro tried to have everyone do something else, inexplicably everyone became busy with other projects they needed to work on leaving their leader with nothing else to do but go to his quarters and lay down.

            It was brilliant, and effective. Shiro didn’t usually have nightmares when he was just taking a nap so even though he didn’t nap for very long, the quality of the sleep was much better.

           

            That’s why Shiro was waking up from a nap in the middle of the castle’s day cycle. He felt refreshed and immediately wanted to head to Pidge’s room to see if the cramps in the green paladin’s legs had eased. He’d ended their group training early when their youngest member had started complaining about leg pains.

            The door to his room whooshed open and Shiro stopped before taking a step out. His brows furrowed as he took in the hallways.

            There was stuff everywhere. Crates from storage, chairs from the dining room, tables from various rooms of the castle. They were spaced evenly, if somewhat haphazardly down the hallway and around the corner out of sight.

            “What in the world?” he said. He lifted his foot to step out when a shriek from his left made him freeze.

            “Don’t touch the floor!”

            Shiro’s head whipped around and he saw Lance perched on a crate at the very end of the hall looking at him with panic.

            “Lance! What’s going on?” Shiro called. Lance stood up and began hopping forward, going from crate, to table, to chair, until he was closer to the black paladin.

            “You can’t touch the floor,” he said seriously.

            “Has something happened to the castle?” Shiro asked, immediately going into Leader Mode.

            “Yes. The floor is lava,” Lance said.

            It took a moment for those words to register in Shiro’s mind. He looked at the floor, then up to Lance. They locked eyes and Lance could see the pieces click into place.

            “Come with me if you want to live.” Lance held out his hand. Conflict warred over Shiro’s face, a split second battle where he had to choose whether or not he was going to go all in because he knew if he started now there would be no going back.

            Shiro put his hand into Lance’s and let the blue paladin help pull him up onto the crate.

            “What’s the status soldier?”

            “I came out here for a supply run, but had to take the long way around to try and avoid the Monkeys.”

            “You capitalized that word in your head didn’t you?” Shiro asked.

            “100%. I didn’t expect to find you still alive out here though sir. We need to head back to the safe zone before one of the factions finds us.”

            “Factions?”

            “I don’t have time to explain here. We need to get to the safe zone now.”

            “Wait, shhh,” Shiro said. They both fell silent, and then there was a faint sucking, thumping sound.

            “What is that?” Shiro asked. Lance’s eyes went wide and panicked.

            “Wall climbers! We need to run!” Lance said.

            “What?” Shiro asked, but the answer came when he looked down the hall. Pidge, Frank, and a masked blade member were using some sort of suction devices on their hands and feet to crawl along the walls. It was one of the creepiest things he’d ever seen, and that included during his time with the Galra.

            “There they are, don’t let them escape!” Pidge shrieked. Their awkward suction crawling sped up and Lance took off in the other direction, jumping gracefully from object to object.

            “Shiro come on!” he yelled. The black paladin took off after him, taking only brief moments to pause and check the progress of their pursuers. What he saw made him shudder – the trio was surprisingly fast with their suction cup things and they were gaining on them.

            “Lance they’re getting closer!” Shiro said.

            "Stop!" Pidge shouted.

            “We’re almost there! Can't stop, won't stop!” Lance said. They turned a corner and the door to the common room came in sight, but Lance stopped.

            “Turnips!” Lance cursed. “It’s a trap! They moved one of our stepping stones so we can’t get into the safe zone!”

            “What do we do?”

            “Keith!” Lance called. Shiro wasn’t expecting that, but even more surprising was when the door to the common room opened and Keith poked his head out.

            “Lance!”

            “I found Shiro, but the wall climbers are coming, we can’t get in!”

            “You guys need to jump!”

            “It’s too far!”

            “Come on sharpshooter, I’ll help you! I can hear them gaining, you need to jump.”

            “Shiro!” Lance turned and clamped a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “I need you to toss me! I don’t think I can jump the distance.”

            Shiro nodded. “Are you ready?”

            “Just, don't tell Pidge," Lance said. Shiro voiced his affirmative. "Okay then, I’m ready!” Lance said. Shiro gripped the back of Lance’s jacket in his Galra hand, then they crouched together.

            “Now!” Lance leapt, Shiro tossed, and Keith managed to grab onto the blue paladin and haul him onto the crate just inside the door without falling off.

            “Shiro come on!” Keith yelled.

            “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it!” Shiro said. The wall climbers rounded the corner.

            “We already thought we lost you in this war! We won’t lose you again! Jump!” Keith said. Shiro turned and looked at Pidge and Frank, noting the demented glee on their faces as they got closer. He took a deep breath, crouched, and leapt with all his power. Behind him Pidge shrieked with rage.

            Both Lance and Keith reached out when Shiro’s feet connected with the edge of the crate. They each grabbed and arm and hauled. He tumbled forward and landed on top of both of them, but they stayed on the crate.

            “You can’t stay in there forever! We’ll get you soon!” Pidge called. The door to the common room whooshed closed, and the three paladins let out deep sighs.

            “Can you get off of us big guy? Kinda can’t breath,” Lance said. Shiro sat up quickly then helped Lance up. Keith was already up and jumping to a table, then onto the couch.

            “Come on, let’s take a breather,” Lance said. He hopped over to sit on the couch with Keith, and Shiro followed.

            “I wasn’t able to get any rations. The wall climbers found me too quickly and I had to get back here after finding Shiro.”

            “That’s okay, I’m glad you got Shiro back here safe. Are you okay?” Keith said.

            “Yeah I’m good, just a bit shaken. They got close back there.”

            “You did good and you’re safe again for now.”

            Shiro looked back and forth between the red and blue paladin. They were actually in the same room together, talking to each other, and neither one of them were stuttering or blushing or making inane comments, or running away. How long had he been asleep?

            “So this is a safe zone?” Shiro asked. Lance nodded.

            “For now,” he said.

            “What’s that mean?”

            “Safe zones aren’t permanent. They only last for about a varga before being swallowed by the lava. We only have about forty minutes left on this one.”

            “What happens when all the safe zones are gone?”

            “We battle it out with the other groups, but we don’t have much hope since everyone else took all the good tech. Keith and I are fast so we’ve been able to outrun them, but they are starting to lay traps.”

            “We’re going to have to go to High Town,” Keith said.

            “We can’t, we have nothing to offer him for safe stay.”

            “We’re going to have to find something. There aren’t anymore safe zones after this one is gone.”

            “Is High Town another safe zone?”

            “Not technically, but the governor there doesn’t allow fighting. He and his guards throw anyone who breaks his rules into the lava. Anyone can go in as long as they have something valuable to offer the governor, otherwise the guards are free to kill you.”

            “This is elaborate,” Shiro murmured.

            “What?” Keith asked.

            “Nothing. We’re going to need to come up with a plan.”

            “Yeah! We have Space Dad on our side now, so we could actually win!” Lance said.

            “…… Space Dad?” Shiro said. The blue paladin went red and his mouth flapped open and closed like a fish as he struggled to find the words.

            “Uh, well, you know, you kind like, take care of all of us? And you kinda keep us in line, and admonish us for bad language and stuff, and you and Allura are kinda like Space Mom and Dad.”

            “Lance do you have father issues you want to talk about? Cause I’m willing to listen whenever you need.”

            “One hundred percent not, and I’m not the only one who calls you that.”

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah we all call you that behind your back, even Keith sometimes.”

            “Lance!” the red paladin barked.

            “What! I don’t want Shiro to think I’m some weirdo with daddy issues!”

            “You called Kolivan daddy!”

            “I called him daddy-o, there’s a huge difference! That’s just slang.”

            “Okay let’s not fight,” Shiro said sternly. Then he paused and slapped his forehead.

            “Okay I think I kinda get it,” he admitted. “So how did you and Keith end up on a team?”

            “He saved my life. I was about to get captured by the Monkeys, but Keith showed up and got me out of there.”

            “Wait, captured?”

            “Yeah… about that…”

            “Lance’s… what are they called, suitors? Well they’re kinda trying to kidnap him.”

            “That sounds like a healthy beginning to a relationship,” Shiro deadpanned.

            “I already told them I wasn’t interested! But they were so earnest and honest and hot so I told them they could stay at the castle if they really wanted to try and win me over but honestly my decision making skills aren’t always the greatest with things like this. I’m not going to change my mind so I shoulda just sent them away.”

            “Okay, but it doesn’t really make sense that they’re trying to catch you and not just knock you onto the floor.”

            Keith snorted a laugh through his nose. “They aren’t trying to knock him out of the game. They want to catch him to keep him safe, take out everyone else, then kill themselves so Lance wins. For some reason they really seem to hate me though, not sure why.”

            “Your life is wild,” Shiro said to Lance. The blue paladin nodded.

            “Yeah it really is, but I want to win on my own! I’m not the type to just let someone protect me. ”

            “We know,” Shiro and Keith said at the same time. Lance’s raised his eyebrows.

            “You do?”

            “Yeah, all of us kinda wish you were more the type to let yourself be protected,” Keith said.

            “What’s that supposed to mean?” Lance asked defensively.

            “Nothing bad,” Shiro added. The two paladins were getting a long and actually interacting normally with each other and he wanted to preserve that for as long as possible. “You’re just surprisingly independent and sometimes you get into trouble, but instead of asking us for help you try to solve it on your own.”

            Lance looked down at his lap. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

            “Lance, we’re a team. If something happens, even if you think it’s silly or your fault, you need to know that’s it’s always okay to tell us or ask us for help. Pidge or Keith may make fun of you a little, but we won’t judge you and we’ll never, ever just leave you to handle something dangerous alone. We all really care about you. I know you have Frank, Click, and Spot, but we’re also here for you no matter what.”

            “Yeah, what Shiro said,” Keith added awkwardly.

            “Oh, thanks.” There was a little kitten smile on Lance’s face, but he was still looking at his lap.

            Shiro looked over at Keith and saw the red paladin looking at Lance with so much fondness and affection that Shiro felt like he would melt right then and there. He elbowed Keith to get his attention, then subtly nodded his head towards Lance. Keith’s eyes went wide and he shook his head no. Shiro nodded. Keith shook his head again. Shiro pressed his lips to each other and jerked his head towards Lance again.

            “Anyways,” Lance said, looking up and causing both other paladins to jump. “We only have like, thirty minutes left so we need a plan.”

            Keith cleared his throat. “Right,” he croaked.

            “You okay?” Lance asked, face going soft and concerned.

            “Totally fine. Good. Perfect. I’m great. All good here. How are you?”

            “I’m good,” Lance said slowly with one eyebrow raised in question.

            “So, where is High Town?” Shiro cut in, bringing their attention back to the mission at hand. If Keith got flustered he might run away and he couldn’t have that, because there was one thing Shiro was certain of right then and there – they were going to win this damn game. Then he was going to follow up on what Lance had said about being a burden to the team. He didn’t know where that had come from, but he needed to talk with Allura and Coran about what they could all do to get that idea out of Lance’s head. And if the universe had any mercy, he’d try to get Keith to have an honest talk with the blue paladin about feelings.

            “It’s in the kitchen. So we’ll need to make a plan to get through one whole floor and then a couple hallways. The governor doesn’t monitor the halls so they’re fair game. We also need to figure out a worthy offering for him.”

            “Okay, and who’s the governor?”

            “Hunk,” Lance and Keith said at the same time.

            “Seriously?”

            “He who controls the food controls the universe,” Lance said sagely while nodding his head slowly. Keith and Shiro found themselves nodding along, and both wondered how they hell they’d got to this point in their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wheeee! How will the game turn out??? Who will survive? Tune in next chapter!


	8. *Shimmies*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game continues. 
> 
> Shiro realizes just how little he knows about Lance. 
> 
> Frank loses her cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoo, I so did not mean for the next chapter to take so long. Between moving, starting a new job, finding out the job is shit, and my internet going down for a week, I've been dealing with a lot. 
> 
> Because of all that, this chapter ends on a super friggin angsty note. Sorry about that, I always gotta mitigate my humor with angst because I can't help myself. Everything starts out with it's usual ridiculousness and then devolves from there. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it anyways!

Chapter 8: *Shimmies*

 

            “It’s going to be impossible to get through the hallways using the jump points. I’m pretty sure the wall climbers are camping the safe room, waiting for our time to run out.” Keith said.

            “Then we’ll have to go through the vents. I know the mice are in there spying for Allura but it’s our best chance,” Lance replied.

            “Lance that’s a good option for you and Keith, but I don’t think it’s possible for me,” Shiro said, not even bothering to be surprised that Allura was also playing this game. Keith and Lance’s eyes turned to him, then to each other, then back to him.

            Shiro was certainly… broader than the pair of them like, everywhere. Keith was jacked, but his frame remained slim making him deceptively strong. Lance had always had the build of an overstretched string bean (in his eyes. In everyone else’s he was lithe and flexible and hot as hell). So they wouldn’t have much trouble. Shiro was jacked in that sexy, bulgy, ‘I could crush a watermelon between my thighs’ kind of way. He definitely never skips leg day. Or arm day. Or core day. Hell he probably even had a hand and foot day.

            “I think you’ll fit,” Lance said.

            “I may be able to get in there but I don’t think I’ll be able to move.”

            “You can totally move.”

            “How?”

            “Just kinda…” Lance stopped talking and shimmied. Keith and Shiro just stared at him blankly.

            “You know! Just…” Lance shimmied again.

            “It’s worth a shot?” Keith said hesitantly.

            “I’m not going to shimmy through the vents.”

            “Come on, it’s our only chance to get to the Governor.”

            “We don’t even have an offering for him yet.”

            “We will if we stop by my room first.”

            “Lance the vents don’t go into our rooms.”

            “I know but there are some outside of them. From there I just need to swing inside.”

            “I think it’s a suicide mission.”

            “I’d rather die out there fighting than to slowly wait for death in here!” Lance said. “They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!”

            “You are really into this,” Shiro commented.

            “There are three Galra currently on this ship who came here specifically cause they want to try and date me or something. I’m 100% deflecting.”

            “If it makes you that uncomfortable just tell them to go.”

            “I don’t want to be mean.”

            “You try to chase off anyone who gets even remotely close to Allura.”

            “Yeah cause she’s a princess and amazing and actually kind of naïve for someone her age and no one who approaches her deserves her like, at all.”

            “You think Allura is naïve?” Keith asked incredulously.

            “Just with romance and stuff.”

            “Isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black?”

            “I have literally no idea what that means.”

            “Shiro,” Keith said desperately to the older man next to him while gesturing wildly in Lance’s direction.

            “It’s sweet your want to protect Allura,” is all Shiro said.

            “It’s not just Allura, I want to protect all of you guys. I’d do anything for all of you. I know I spend a lot of time with Frank, Click, and Spot but I love all of you the same,” Lance said absently. His eyes were cast down to his hands and there was that little kitten smile on his face again as he thought about his space family.

            A quiet, strangled sound bubbled in Keith’s throat as he stared at the fond and ridiculously endearing expression on the blue paladin’s face – Lance had been making that expression more and more lately and it was sending little lightning bolts straight through Keith’s heart.  

            Shiro’s look was more contemplative because suddenly he was thinking about how, not long after they’d all come together, Lance had thrown himself in front of Coran to protect the Altean from the explosion that had wrecked the castle. It seemed so long ago now and no one ever mentioned it.

            Shiro met Keith’s eyes, and the latter’s eyebrows furrowed when he noticed the pensive look on former’s face. He shrugged his shoulders in question but Shiro gave the barest shake of his head. There was no way he could let Keith in on his thoughts with Lance right there but… he was suddenly worried. After that explosion everyone had chalked Lance’s actions up to bravery and selflessness, but after Lance’s comment about being a burden Shiro had to wonder if Lance had done it because he thought the rest of their lives were more important than his own.

            Keith didn’t seem to need an explanation because after a few ticks his own expression dropped as he made the same mental leap Shiro had.

            “Everyone loves you too, Lance,” Shiro said, partially because it was true and partially because he wanted to confirm something.

            Lance’s little derisive laugh was the answer Shiro and Keith had been expecting and dreading. It was a laugh of disbelief. Lance didn’t think the team cared about him.  What the hell had they all done to the Cuban to make him think they didn’t all love him to pieces?

            “COME OUT WORMS! YOUR TIME’S ALMOST UP!” Pidge’s piercing shriek came through the door and caused the three men to collectively flinch.

            “Quiznak lower your fucking voice,” Frank’s growl came right after.

            “NEVER!” Pidge yelled. Then there was a faint thump, followed by a yelp, which indicated Frank had probably cuffed the younger girl over the head.

            “Okay we’ll go through the vents,” Shiro sighed. There were so many things he had to address once this whole thing was over and already he was getting a bit tired of the whole thing. He hadn’t been able to nap for more than about twenty minutes earlier despite having lain down for over an hour, and after a completely sleepless night before that he felt himself flagging. He was having fun, so was everyone else, but he couldn’t shake his worry or the creeping exhaustion.

            “Alright Shiro you go first and then if you get stuck Keith and I can like, push you out,” Lance said.

            “Okay, let’s get up there.”

            The trio hopped over to the table stationed underneath the vent. Keith helped boost Shiro up, and it was a tight fit, but he managed to squirm his way inside. A second later a clunk told him Lance had gotten in after him, and then another thump and Keith was up.

            “Okay, anyone know how to get to our rooms from in here?” Shiro asked.

            “I memorized the castle’s schematics, so I can get us there. Go straight and then left at the first junction,” Lance said.

            “You memorized the schematics for the entire castle?” Keith asked incredulously. Even Pidge hadn’t done that. They all thought the mice were the only ones who could truly find their way around the massive castle without issue.

            “Mhm,” Lance said breezily while they all scooted forward.

            “When did you do this?” Shiro asked hoping he sounded as impressed as he was.

            “Like, a few months after we got here?”

            “How long did it take?

            “A day or so. Hey Shiro I just noticed but you have a ridiculously toned butt.”

            Shiro’s human arm suddenly collapsed out from under him and he smacked into the vent’s wall. A thump farther back told him something similar had happened to Keith.

            “Uh, thanks Lance.”

            “I wish I could get mine to look like that but mine’s always been a lot rounder. My mama told me that I get it from her and that more booty means you’ll get more love. I never really knew what she meant by that, but no workouts ever made it toned like yours. Squats just made it rounder. I’m so lanky and skinny but my butt didn’t get that memo. Keith why did you stop moving?”

            Shiro managed to crane his head just enough to see Keith a fair distance behind them with his head hanging down. His breathing was a little ragged.

            “It’s really hot in here, just taking a breather,” Keith said sounding strained.

            “Sorry buddy, we’re almost to the rooms. Think you can make it a bit farther?”

            “I’ll be fine.”

            “Lance why don’t you take the lead at the next crossway since you know where to go? I don’t think I’ll get stuck,” Shiro said.

            “Roger that space dad,” Lance said. At the next cross section Shiro went to the wrong side to let Lance pass, then followed after him. Only then did Keith seem to take a full breath. Now that his face wasn’t directly in line with Lance’s ass he might be able to survive the journey through the vents.

            “Comfortable Keith?” Shiro couldn’t help but tease the younger man behind him when he heard him shifting his legs uncomfortably.

            “Oh fuck you Shiro,” Keith grumbled. Shiro only chuckled and murmured a quick “language.”

            “Are you guys coming?” Lance called.

            “We’re coming.”

           

            They fell silent during the crawl and Shiro found himself examining the walls. At various junctions there were numbers and Altean letters etched, but he didn’t know what they meant.

            “I wonder what these markings mean,” he said rhetorically. He wasn’t expecting an answer, which is why he was so surprised when Lance answered.

            “They are just junction markers. It’s a building code that basically just tells us where we are in the ship.”

            “How do you know that?”

            “They were mentioned in the schematic notes.”

            “Aren’t all the schematics in Altean?”

            “Mhm,” Lance said. Shiro and Keith waited for him to say more, but the blue paladin didn’t seem to feel the need to explain further.

            “So, you know Altean?” Keith asked.

            “Yeah I can read and speak Altean and Galran.”

            “Did Coran teach you?”

            “Nah, I studied it in my spare time. Once I got the basics down I just started reading books from the castle library and it was pretty easy after that. I like learning languages.”

            “How many languages do you speak?” Shiro couldn’t help but ask.

            “Uhm,” Lance muttered to himself and the two men behind him realized he was counting under his breath. The fact that he had to stop and count was shocking in and of itself.

            “Eight if I include Galran and Altean,” he finally said.

            “Holy shit,” Keith said.

            “What languages?”

            “I can speak English and Spanish obviously. I also speak Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and French. I have a really hard time concentrating on learning normal stuff, but languages just click with me and I can actually concentrate when learning them.”

            “I didn’t know you spoke Japanese. Why didn’t you ever tell me? I’m fluent too,” Shiro said.

            “It never really came up. I didn’t meet you until I was dragging you out of that tent at the Garrison and after that we never really talked unless it was for training or mission briefings. You spent most your free time with Keith or Allura and it felt kinda weird to just come up to be like, ‘Hey Shiro guess what, I speak Japanese so let’s talk!’ I know I’m pretty outgoing but that seemed weird even for me.” Lance accompanied his statement with a lighthearted laugh.  

            “Did you know I speak fluent Korean too?” Keith asked.

            Lance snorted. “Of course I knew. Your dad was half Korean right? You mentioned once that your grandma didn’t speak English and she taught you Korean before she passed.”

            Keith paused in his crawling. “I… yeah. That’s right,” he said. Shiro of course knew that about Keith but was a little surprised Lance knew it to.

            “Yeah, and Hunk speaks fluent French and Samoan. Half his family is from French Polynesia and the rest are from American Samoa. I was starting to learn Samoan before we came out here but Hunk doesn’t really have the time to teach me anymore. He spends most of his free time with Pidge and Coran doing stuff with the castle or tech stuff.”

            Shiro had also known that about Hunk, but something about what Lance said bothered him. He’d thought Lance spent his free time with Hunk. So if Hunk spent most his free time with Pidge and Coran, and Shiro spent all his free time with Keith and Allura, who had Lance been spending time with that entire year before his alien friends had showed up?

            Keith, lacking many normal social graces, decided to ask that very question.

            “So who were you spending your free time with back then?”

            Shiro could see Lance’s shoulders shrug as he crawled.

            “No one really. I just studied a lot and played video games once I got that system set up I bought at the space mall. Oh and I spent a lot of time with Kalteneker in that weird grassy room.”

            An image of Lance sitting in his room by himself playing video games or studying day after day popped up in Shiro’s mind, and the pieces were finally clicking together in his head. It was starting to make sense why Lance felt like the team didn’t care about him. For an entire year they’d all unintentionally isolated him. He was a teenager fighting in a war that literally affected the entire universe, and they’d left Lance to cope with it alone for an entire year.

            It was no wonder he’d latched onto Frank, Click, and Spot and become so attached to them. He’d been socially isolated by his own team and had probably been desperate for affection, reassurance, or just general support. It also explained why the three aliens seemed to barely tolerate the rest of the team. Sure they were amicable most the time, but they made no secret of the fact that they didn’t entirely like the rest of the Voltron crew.

            “We’re here!” Lance said before Shiro could even attempt to formulate a response.

            The Cuban carefully removed the grate and poked his head out.

            “Okay, it looks clear. Shiro, can you help lever me down? My door is right below us so if you guys hold onto me I can use my foot to activate the door, then I can like swing in.”

            “That’s going to take a pretty impressive feat of acrobatics,” Keith joked.

            “Good thing I’m a gymnast,” Lance responded with a laugh of his own. The other two waited for a ‘just kidding,’ but it didn’t come.

            “Wait, seriously?” Keith asked.

            “Yup. Okay hold up I’m going to turn myself around.”

            Lance awkwardly maneuvered in a circle until he was face-to-face with Shiro. He grinned wide.

            “Okay ready?”

            “Sure,” Shiro said. He grabbed Lance’s hands, braced himself, then slowly began lowering Lance out of the vent.

            “Okay, I can feel the control pad.” He began wriggling, and Shiro felt himself sliding on the slick vent floor.

            “Lance don’t wiggle so much,” he grunted.

            “Sorry!” Lance said, followed by an ecstatic “¡ _Toma!”_ followed by the sound of the door opening.

            “Okay Shiro,” Lance continued. “You gotta brace so I can swing myself in. Ready?”

            “Yeah just go quick,” Shiro huffed. The strain on his arms increased as Lance began to swing himself.

            “Okay on the count of three let go.”

            “Wait!” Keith yelled. “On three or after three?”

            “On three,” Shiro and Lance said at the same time as if it were obvious.

            And as if they had practiced the move a thousand times, on three Lance swung forward, Shiro let go, and Lance went sailing into his room. There was a thump, a clatter, a crash, a pain filled moan, then silence.

            “Lance, you good?” Shiro called.

            “All good, made it onto the desk. But I forgot about the space rocks I found on the last planet we were on. I left them on my desk,” came Lance’s pain filled response. Both Keith and Shiro winced in sympathy. The rocks had been pretty, but also pretty jagged.

            “Any blood?” Shiro asked.

            “I’m fine,” Lance said, but neither man in the vent missed how he didn’t actually answer the question.

            “Okay, get what you came for and get out.”

            “Got it!” Lance called. “I’m going to scooch my desk closer to the door and see if I can jump for you.”

            What followed that statement was the most godawful screeching noise as the metal desk grated over the metal floor in short burst. It seemed to last for a ridiculously long amount of time until Shiro peaked out and saw the edge of the desk just peaking through the door.

            “Just a little more,” Lance called, poking his head out and up. “I’m going to toss the offering up to you first. I didn’t wear my jacket and I don’t want to smush it in my jeans pocket.”

            “Okay, I’m ready,” Shiro said. Lance’s hands appeared, they counted to three, and he tossed. Shiro easily caught what appeared to be a chocolate bar before passing it back to Keith.

            “Okay, now you,” Shiro said.

            “Hold up, let me try to get the desk further out” Then they both froze as a strange whooshing sound filled the hall.

            “Oh fuck me,” Lance cursed. Shiro ignored Keith’s whispered “gladly,” and looked towards the end of the hallway. Then his mind temporarily shut down.

            “Is Coran wearing my armor?” Shiro asked, his voice sounding distant in his own ears. At the end of the hallways, Allura and Coran were hovering above the grounds with the power of the jetpacks built into the paladin armor. Allura was wearing her normal pink armor, but Coran’s was black and very familiar.

            “Yeah they were kind of in the armoury when this whole thing started. They commandeered all the armor,” Lance said.

            “HA HA HA! We’ve got you now my boys!” Coran cackled.

            “Lance hurry, jump!” Keith shouted.

            “Shit.” Lance angled himself awkwardly out the door while stand on the desk and Allura and Coran jetted towards them like demented hovering Altean banshees, hands outstretched ready to grab on of them and throw them into the lava.

            Shiro hung out the vent and extended his arms down while he felt Keith grab his ankels.

            “Now!” he said. Lance jumped, his hands met Shiro’s, and then he and Keith began desperately hauling the blue paladin up and back into the vent.

            “No! You will not escape us!” Allura shouted. With a mighty heave they got most of Lance’s body into the vent just as Coran and Allura grabbed onto his pants.

            “Let go!” Lance shrieked, kicking out. The Alteans used their mighty strength to try and haul Lance back out, but Shiro activated his prosthetic which increased his strength and pulled back while Keith braced behind him, still holding onto Shiro’s legs and pulling.

            Then a couple things happened at once. There was a pinging sound as the button popped on Lance’s jeans, and the force pulling Lance ceased as the his jeans slid straight off into the hands of the Alteans, and the rest of Lance was pulled fully into the vent.

            And everything paused. Keith, Lance, and Shiro all stared out the vent opening at Coran and Allura holding Lance’s jeans with vague confusion. Then all eyes shifted to the blue paladin who was lying in a heap in the vent, ass up, now pantless, wearing tight black boxer briefs that accentuated the amazingly plump, round ass he’d mentioned earlier.

            Keith gulped audibly. Lance looked at himself with brows furrowed as if trying to piece together what had just happened. The Alteans kept looking between him and the jeans. Shiro sighed.

            “I don’t suppose you’ll give those back?” their leader questioned on behalf of the currently speechless blue paladin.

            “If one of you comes out,” Allura said immediately, ever the ruthless warrior.

            “No way!” Lance said immediately. “I don’t need pants to win this!” he said.

            Considering Keith was about to have an aneurism, Shiro felt that Lance definitely really did need pants, but the Cuban was already scooting further back into the vent.

            “You can’t stay in the vents forever!” Allura said.

            “Yes we can! And you can’t come after us unless you take off the armor!” Lance taunted.

            “Wherever you go, we’ll be waiting for you on the other side!” Coran threatened, but they trio ignored the duo and began retreating back the way they’d come.

            “Breathe, Keith,” Shiro whispered.

            “Man, I can’t believe that just happened,” Lance giggled. “I got pantsed by an alien princess and a royal advisor.”

            They paused at the cross junction, paths leading in four directions. They paused for a second to catch their breath and then both Keith and Shiro noticed Lance wince as he sat back, then twist so that a few shallow, bloodied gouges were visible on the back of his thighs where he’d made impact with the rocks.

            “Shit Lance,” Keith said.

            “It’s cool, really, they’re just scratches. They aren’t even really bleeding.”

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yeah, I just want to rest for a second.” Lance wilted back into a side sit that didn’t put pressure on the cuts.

            Shiro pressed his lips together and looked at Keith, then to where Lance was sitting wearing nothing but a gray t-shirt and black briefs with his long, toned legs on display, then back to Keith.  If he had to pinpoint a description, he’d say Lance was hovering somewhere between ‘ravished princess’ and ‘sleepy kitten.’ It was obviously doing things to the red paladin.

            “So, can you guys explain what sort of advantages everyone else actually has here?” Shiro finally said with hopes of distracting Keith.

            “Well,” Keith said. His eyes were closed, but at least he sounded fairly normal. “Pidge, Frank, and one of the blades have those suction cups things. Allura and Coran have the paladin armor. The three after Lance have these grappling things that can attach to the ceiling so they just kinda swing around everywhere. Hunk’s holed up in the kitchen with Spot and a few blades.”

            “Spot went with Hunk, really?” Shiro asked.

            “Yeah, that’s where the food is, and he didn’t have to try moving around to different places, so he just parked himself on the dining table,” Lance said. “And Click’s not allowed to play cause they can fly which isn’t really fair. Not that they mind. Said something about us all being ridiculous, then muttered something about how we’re the universe’s only hope, then went off to their room.”

            “And Kolivan threw himself into the lava along with a few other blades almost as soon as the game started because he doesn’t know how to have fun,” Keith finally finished.

            “So has anyone actually gotten anyone out?”

            “Not really. I mean, we’re all highly trained warriors so it’s not as easy as it seems to push someone into the lava.”

            “Alright. Lance are you good to keep going? We should get to Hunk.”

            “You gotta call him the Governor,” Lance said.

            “Christ,” Shiro sighed.

            “And yeah,” Lance continued, “I’m good to go.”

            “Keith?” Shiro said.

            “Yeah, I’ll bring up the rear behind you Shiro. Lance you should lead,” Keith said. Shiro almost laughed…almost, because Keith’s voice was incredibly strained and he still wouldn’t open his eyes.

            “Alright, this way!” Lance began crawling, and Shiro couldn’t help but wince again at the gouges on the back of Lance’s thighs. They had to sting like hell but he never said a word of complaint as they made their way towards Hunk.

 

\---

 

            Shiro wondered how he’d gotten to this point in his life. After a battle in the kitchen where High Town was destroyed and Hunk’s team was all eliminated plus the Blade from Pidge’s team, the remaining survivors found themselves on the command deck. Allura and Coran hovered in one corner, the Monkey’s hung from their weird grappling hooks like… monkey’s. Pidge and Frank were still stuck to the wall although Pidge was practically upsided-down. Lance, Keith, and Shiro were perched on Keith’s paladin chair, and everyone was hurling insults.

            The dead players had congregated to one side, watching the scene with mild curiosity. Shiro had to admit that the game had been fun, especially the strange battle in the kitchen followed by a mad dash through the hallways to the command deck, but now he just felt tired. No one seemed willing the engage, and his head hurt from all the yelling going back and forth.

            Before he could help it, his mouth opened in a massive, jaw cracking yawn. It was a good one, lasting a good few seconds and making his whole body shudder.

            When his mouth clicked shut he suddenly realized all the noise had gone quiet. When he opened his eyes a room full of people averted their gaze away from him. He had no idea about the Nap Protocol, or that the Blades of Marmora had all been made aware of it.

            “You know I’m kinda tired. We should call it a day,” Pidge said. She dropped down from the wall, closely followed by Frank.

            “I quite agree Pidge. This was a rousing game and actually was good training! But we have a big day tomorrow,” Allura said. She and Coran slowly drifted down to land gracefully.

            “Lance needs to have his legs looked at, too,” Keith stepped off the chair and offered a hand to Lance, helping the pantless blue paladin off the chair.

            “Lance is injured?” Terek asked, releasing his grapple and dropping to the floor.

            “Who hurt you? I will take their head!” Nazra said, landing beside the slightly shorter Terek.

            “Are you alright?” Efor asked.

            “It’s just some scratches, I’ll be fine!” Lance said brightly.

            “Is someone going to explain now why Lance isn’t wearing pants?” Hunk asked from the side of the room.

            “Well, I may have gotten carried away with the game,” Allura said sheepishly.

            “You took Lance’s pants?!?” Pidge shrieked.

            “It was an accident I assure you!” Allura said defensively.

            “How do you accidentally take someone’s pants?!?”

 

            Shiro watched everyone drop to the floor in utter confusion. A few moments ago they’d all seemed willing to die before losing the game, and now they just stopped as if it wasn’t a big deal. He couldn’t say he wasn’t secretly pleased, he was fairly exhausted, but he didn’t quite understand what had happened.

            “Well then my boy, let me take you down to the infirmary. You certainly don’t need a pod but there’s a salve that will clear those right up!” Coran said.

            “Thank you Coran, please also return his trousers to him and help mend the button. In a moment we should all head to the kitchen next to have a meal before retiring tonight,” Allura said as Coran escorted Lance out the door. As soon as the door closed everyone began chattering and Shiro stepped up to Allura.

            “Princess, did you know Lance learned Altean and can speak it fluently?” he asked her. Her eyes grew wide.

            “He has? I had no idea, that’s wonderful!”

            “He also learned Galran, and memorized the castle schematics.”

            “That’s astonishing. I didn’t imagine Lance would study so diligently.”

            “There are other things two. Princess, we need to meet and discuss him. I think we’ve been neglecting him to the point that it’s begun to damage his psyche.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I’ve learned some things about him today that have me greatly concerned for him, and I think it’s our fault.”

            A derisive laugh broke the two leaders out of their conversation. They both turned to see Frank staring at them with barely suppressed anger clear on her face.

            “Shiro, what’s Pidge’s favorite color?” Frank asked. Shiro was thoroughly confused at the sudden hostility the amazon was suddenly directing towards him.

            “Orange, why?”

            “Hunk’s?”

            “Uhm, isn’t it green?”

            “Right! What about Keith?”

            “Red, obviously.”

            “Allura?”

            “A color only Alteans can see called vortil.” Shiro answered each question without really thinking about it, and a quick glance at Allura showed she was just as confused as him.

            “What’s Lance favorite color.” Shiro opened his mouth to answer then stopped. After a few moments he hesitantly said “blue?”

            “Completely wrong! Next question, what’s Hunk’s favorite food?” she asked.

            The questions kept coming, sometimes directed at both himself and Allura, and they found themselves being able to automatically answer almost all questions about every paladin except for Lance. They also began to realize Frank’s purpose and it became abundantly clear they knew absolutely nothing about Lance except that he was originally from Cuba. They didn’t know anything about his family, when he’d moved to America, his interests – nothing. Even Hunk was coming up short on a lot of them.

            Finally Allura sighed. “Frank, I think we all understand your point now.”

            “Do you really princess? When was the last time you spoke to Lance about anything not related to Voltron? And I’m not talking about when we are all together as a group. When is the last time you spoke individually to Lance himself about anything?”

            “It’s been many quinants,” she said quietly.

            “No princess, it’s been many months. Three, actually. And do you want to know what you said to him the last time you both had a one-on-one conversation?” Frank said, getting progressively angrier. The room was dead silent, every single person intently focused on this conversation. Frank continued without waiting for Allura to respond. “You told him if he didn’t train harder he would be a burden to the team. Which is actually better than Shiro who has elected for pure apathy and ignores Lance’s existence outside of official matters. And now you use Click, Spot, and I to justify your continued dismissal because there’s no need to try and support him when he has us, right? And now after two fucking years of treating him like he’s invisible, you’re worried about his mental state? It’s absolutely fucking laughable and at this point why are you even bothering? Hindsight is a bitch and it’s been long enough that there’s no way for you to fix all the ways you’ve fucked that child up. I mean, he truly with all his heart believes that the person who is actually madly in love with him, despises him to the highest degree! You’ve all damaged him, so whatever you are thinking of doing, don’t do it out of some misguided sense of pity or guilt. That’ll just make things worse.”

            With that, Frank left the room. Spot stood up without a word and followed her out, but to everyone’s surprise it was Click who stayed behind. As soon as the other two were gone, a sigh left their mouth.

            “If you truly understand now what you’ve been doing, then you can begin taking steps to correct it. I just hope that your hearts will be in the right place if you do. I know you are not bad people, you’re young and inexperienced, but if you are going to call yourselves a team,” Click swept their gaze across the four remaining stone-still paladins and the princess before settling on Allura and Shiro, “and if you two are going to call yourselves leaders, then you need to take steps to learn what it truly means to be those things. Lance isn’t perfect, but he deserves better than what he’s been getting.”

            It was probably the most any of them had ever heard Click say, and their tone wasn’t filled with the usual disgust. They just seemed sad, and no one had a response, so Click left without another word.

            “It seems your team has much to contemplate. We will take our leave,” Kolivan said. He gestured to his blades, and as a group they filed out. Lance’s three suitors sent harsh gazes across the paladins, but said nothing as they followed Kolivan.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so, I cut the game off because I realized if I kept going I'd have to probably do another chapter and I was like uhh, two chapters for the floor is lava is already pushing it, three would be too much. So I cut out the part at High Town.
> 
> Also, let me know if you guys like or dislike the angst. I know this is kind of a humor fic so if you don't like the angst I'll tone that shit down. 
> 
> And hopefully I have the next chapter out soon! I'll also get back to replying to your comments on this chapter and moving forward.


	9. Damn You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pidge does Lance a favor. 
> 
> The castle residents get a show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is messy... I just wanted to write this scene and get it out. Sorry for the ridiculously long delay. 
> 
> See end note, I have some questions for you!

Chapter 9: Damn You

"Thanks for helping me with this," Lance said. He hovered over Pidge who was doing something to the control panel for the training deck. 

"Yeah no problem, I'm always willing to help out." Pidge laughed awkwardly. 

Lance's eyebrows went up. "Oh, yeah, totally, you're awesome. I was kinda surprised when you showed up at my door and offered to rig up the music system. You yelled at me to leave you alone the last couple times I asked so I kinda gave up." He didn't sound upset or angry, just a little confused. 

Pidge let out another awkward laugh. "You could have gone to Coran?"

"I tried but he said he didn't have time for something frivolous like this." 

"Oh." Pidge didn't know what to say. She'd known since their Garrison days that Lance loved dancing, but until that day she'd never known why. After she offered to rig up a music system so he could use the training deck for dancing, he'd started excitedly chattering away about how his older brother Marco had taught him to dance. He'd loved it so much he'd taught himself all kinds of different dance styles. Their family didn't have money for lessons so he'd used internet tutorials to learn. 

He'd gone on to explain how at the Garrison he would always dance when he got upset or stressed, or when his anxiety started getting bad. The more he talked about how dancing was his coping mechanism, the guiltier Pidge started feeling. He'd been asking her to help him figure out a way to set up a music system practically since day one in the castle. She'd brushed him off every single time. 

"Okay, it should be okay now. Do you have your iPod?"

"Yeah!" Lance nodded eagerly and dug the music device from his pocket, but the instant he saw it his face fell. 

"Oh, I just realized it's probably dead. I had no way to charge it. It died after like, the first week."

Pidge had a vague recollection of Lance coming to her a few months after they got to space asking if she knew of a way to charge electronics. She couldn't remember her response, but guessed she'd dismissed him. 

"That's fine, I can just make some adjustments so that it can power it too." 

"Seriously?" Lance looked like he'd just discovered Santa was real.

"Yeah." Pidge scratched the back of her head and nodded. 

"You're seriously the most awesome person I've ever met," he said happily. Pidge's eyes blew wide and she abruptly turned around to go back to working as she felt tears prick the back of her eyes. Guilt was burning through her faster than she could cope with. 

"Alright!" she said overloud after a few more minutes. "All set up. Just plug it in and it will charge it. Voice commands should still work from the deck so you can just yell what you want it to do once you're down there."

"Wow. Seriously thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me."  

"Anytime." Pidge turned to leave as Lance plugged in the iPod, but stopped and abruptly turned. "Sorry I kept brushing you off about this. You've been like a brother to me and I hope this makes you happy."

Her words were a little too loud and too fast, but they still made Lance stop and stare at her with wide eyes. Then his face split into a grin.

"Aww Pidgeon, I love you too."

She fled after that, practically running back to her room as if she could run away from the guilt. 

\-------------

"I wish I knew where Lance was. I wanted to invite him to train with us," Shiro said as he walked with Keith to the training deck.

"Like that'll help," Keith mumbled. Shiro sighed. 

"Keith this isn't your fault."

"It is Shiro! I haven't wanted to face my feelings for him, so instead I've made him feel like shit. I mean, he always joked about how I hate him, but I didn't think he honestly believed it! I know I have emotional issues, but I never meant for them to hurt someone else."

"The issue with Lance isn't one person's fault. We've all contributed to it. You blaming yourself isn't going to fix anything."

"Right, like you aren't beating yourself up about it?"

"I'm different. I'm supposed to be the leader of this team and I have no excuse for how I've treated him."

"You're only 25. No one expects you to be perfect."

"I know that Keith. I'm not trying to be perfect, but I should have been better. I think a part of me knew I wasn't giving Lance the attention he deserved, but with how he acts so happy and upbeat all the time I guess I just didn't think it was a big deal."

"And now he legit thinks we all think he's disposable," Keith sighed. Shiro scratched a hand through his hair. 

"We'll fix it, somehow."

"If we could find him," Keith groused, but his next words trailed off as a noise made them both pause. 

"What is that?" Shiro asked. There was a pulsing sound coming from the training deck. 

"I don't know, is something malfunctioning?" Both men exchanged a glance then jogged the rest of the way to the training deck. Shiro activated the door and the moment they stepped inside, all the air left Keith's body. 

"Holy shit," he gasped because there was Lance, shirtless, wearing only the skin tight black pants they all usually wore under their armor. Some sort of Latin beat was blasting into the deck and Lance's hips were swaying to it in perfect time, his arms flowing around him, his eyes closed with something like bliss on his face. Gone was the thin, lanky blue paladin, and in his place appeared to be a Cuban sex bomb. At least, that's what Keith thought. 

"Shiro, Shiro," Keith began repeatedly hitting the older man's arm as if he wasn't also standing there staring at the blue paladin's liquid movements. 

"Go dance with him," Shiro said suddenly. They didn't even need to bother whispering since the music was so loud and Lance seemed to be in a different world. 

"Are you crazy?!?"

"No. There's a reason I put you in hip hop lessons basically from the moment I took you in."

"I thought that was for anger management?"

"It definitely was, and now it's so you can go dance with Lance."

"I don't know any Latin dances." 

Shiro just smirked at him and Keith didn't understand why until he was turning back to Lance and opening his mouth. 

"Don't!" Keith snapped, but it was too late. 

"Hey Lance!" Shiro shouted to be heard above the music. The Cuban's movements stopped abruptly and his eyes snapped open. He saw Shiro and Keith standing there, and instead of being embarrassed or flustered he just beamed at them. 

"Pause music!" he shouted. The sound dropped off and the room seemed almost oppressively silent in its absence. "Hey guys," he continued happily once the music had stopped. He as panting slightly, his lean, toned chest heaving up and down. A fine sheen of sweat made him positively glow in the bright white lighting on the room. Before they could respond he brought his hand up to push hair from his face, bringing attention to the slightly red flush of his cheeks. 

"Wow," Keith whispered. 

"Hey, I didn't know you could get music in here," Shiro said, ignoring Keith's gay panic. 

"Pidge hooked it up for me this morning!"

"This morning? How long have you been in here? It's almost dinner."

"Shit really? Man it's been hours then. I'm not even tired!" Lance said, laughing breathlessly. "If you guys want to train I can clear out."

"No that's okay. You should keep going, in fact," Shiro turned to look at Keith, and the younger boy pressed his lips together and made a 'don't you fucking do it' face. Shiro ignored it. "Keith used to dance all the time. He had anger issues when he was a kid so I signed him up for hip hop lessons. He got really good. You should dance together!"

"Dammit Shiro," Keith hissed. Lance's smile brightened a watt and Keith felt like he was going to go blind from how blinding it was. 

"I didn't know you could dance! I have tons of hip hop music, do you want to dance with me?"

"He'd love to," Shiro said before Keith could panic and say no. 

"Great!" Lance said. Keith wanted to back out, but the excuses died on his lips as soon as he saw the blue paladin's face sparkling with excitement. 

"I'll probably be rusty," he murmured. 

"Don't worry, I'm super rusty to. I haven't really danced at all since we got out here." 

"You think you're rusty?" Keith asked. Both he and Shiro exchanged a look, the pair imaging Lance's fluid, sexually charged movements from a few minutes prior. He certainly hadn't looked rusty. 

"Yeah, definitely. Shiro are you going to dance too?"

"No, I just remembered that Allura asked me to help her with something so you two can go on without me. I'll drop back in later and then we can all train together, if you're not too tired Lance. Sounds like you've been doing this all day." 

"Okay, see you later then." Lance still sounded unbearably happy. Shiro turned to walk out, but paused a moment to meet Keith's panicked eyes. He put a hand to the younger man's shoulder and the message was crystal clear. 'Don't fuck this up.' Then he was gone, striding back through the doors and leaving Keith to awkwardly fidgit. 

"If you're tired we can do this another day," Keith hedged. Lance shook his head. "I'm way too pumped to be tired. I'll probably be sore as hell tomorrow, my hips are going to be killing me I'm sure, but it's totally worth it." 

"Right..."

"Play music!" Lance shouted. The same Latin song picked back up. 

"Skip," Lance said. The song changed to something pop sounding. Lance skipped a couple more times before a deep bass thrum boomed through the room. The sound instantly burrowed into Keith's bones and he let out a breath of air, tension suddenly leaving him. He closed his eyes and let the bass settle in. 

"You should take off the armor and stretch for a minute then join me, yeah?" Lance asked. Keith flinched when Lance's voice suddenly sounded right next to him. He opened his eyes and got an up close look of Lance's flushed, happy face and could only swallow thickly and nod. That seemed to be enough for the blue paladin. He walked back towards the center of the room and suddenly he began grinding through the air, jumping and moving his feet and hips to match the music. 

Keith immediately shed the armor plates and dropped into a stretch, suddenly seeing the opportunity for what it was. As provocative as dancing with a partner could be, it was dance. He could get close to Lance, feel his body like he'd always wanted, but hopefully keep his dick out of the equation. In his hip hop classes he'd often danced close to girls and guys, grinding against them or having them grind against him, but he was always able to separate dance from sexual desire. He just hoped he could do that now. 

It was a full song before he stood up, and as soon as he did the beat switched. There was still a deep bass, but it was slower, and Lance's movements immediately slowed to match. He turned to see Keith standing there and he gestured him over. After a deep breath, he complied.

With no reservations, Lance grabbed him and pressed their fronts together and Keith had no choice except to bend his knees and sway with him. It took a couple minutes, but as soon as the beat took him over his hands went to Lance's hips so he could hold the thinner boy close to him. Their hips were practically glued together as they rolled with the music, easily matching each other as they followed the beat.  

It didn't take long after that for Keith to become completely lost in the moment. His body moved without his input, sensing Lance's slightest movement and matching it. They synced perfectly, and Keith allowed himself just to feel: Lance's soft, damp skin beneath his hands, his breath ruffling Keith's hair, the way his panting breaths sounded so close to his ear, how warm he was and how he made Keith feel as if he were on fire. 

The pair broke apart, Keith dropping into a backspin while Lance backflipped. Although breaking was one of Keith's favorite style of dance, he missed Lance's warmth while they both freestyled. He was overheated, yet he craved the extra heat of the Cuban nearby. 

He rolled over to Lance, grabbing his hips and pulling him in so his back was pressed to Keith's chest. The other boy's hip bones served as perfect handles to keep Lance pressed against him. The were both panting when the music changed, slowing into a sensual, beat. The part of his brain still active helpfully supplied him with the term 'sex music' but he carefully ignored that. All other thoughts promptly fled when Lance's arm came up, reaching to the back of Keith's head to pull him closer. A quick glance showed the blue paladin's eyes closed, his face relaxed and mouth slightly open as his breaths panted out. 

Keith couldn't help but tighten his grip on Lance's hips to an almost bruising pressure, pulling him in so closely that it made moving hard, but Lance didn't protest and Keith didn't let go. Both of them were lost in the moment and in each other. 

\------

"This is better than porn," Frank said. She grabbed another handful of space popcorn from the giant bowl that had been brought into the observation deck and shoved it in her mouth. 

"Frank, please," Allura protested, but it was a weak protest since she couldn't take her eyes off of the dancing paladins on the training deck below. Everyone else either said nothing, or nodded along. 

"Although if this was really porn they'd end up fucking on the training deck."

"Christ," Shiro muttered. 

"They're both far too repressed for that," Kolivan said. No one even bothered to be surprised anymore by Kolivan's random input on Lance's life. 

"The big purple cat is right," Click said. They were sitting on top of Spot's head, fully invested in the happenings below, to everyone's surprise. 

"I know it wouldn't actually happen," Frank said. "I'm just saying if the universe was fair and real life happened like porn, Keith would be stripping off Lance's tight black pants and rubbing his hands all over..."

"Oh my GOD," Hunk said. "Please don't give me those kind of images of my best friend."

"I wouldn't be opposed to seeing that," Terek said. All eyes briefly turned to him, but he didn't even look chagrined. He simply shrugged. "Lance is a beautiful person, of course I want to see him nude."

"Even if it meant someone else was touching him?" Coran asked, unable to help his curiosity. 

"I am okay with simply admiring from afar." 

"Solid," Pidge said. Everyone hummed in agreement and turned back to the window. 

Every resident of the castle was currently in the observation room. It was a tight fit since the room wasn't all that large, but as soon as Shiro had come running about Lance and Keith dancing together, no one was able to resist going to watch. 

Hunk had shown up five minutes later than everyone else with space popcorn in tow, and then they all settled in to watch the duo. As it had gone on, the dancing had gotten progressively more sensuous as Lance and Keith pressed closer and closer. Now they were there, Lance's bare back pressed to Keith's chest, grinding to the slow bass of whatever song was playing. Everyone in the room, regardless of sexuality, had to admit the display was incredibly erotic and no one could bring themselves to look away.  

"I'm in love," Nazra sighed. Efor and Terek made affirmative noises. Like Terek, the other two didn't seem to care that Lance was currently sex dancing with another paladin, they could only focus on the roll of his hips and the way his skin glowed gold. 

"Ten GAC says Keith messes this up somehow," Pidge said. 

"Hey," Shiro said indignantly. He wanted to believe the best in his brother. 

"Ten says it's Lance," Hunk said sheepishly. He felt bad for betting against his best friend, but he knew the boy's track record for saying something supremely stupid at inopportune moments. 

After quiet squabbling, Kolivan, Terek, Efor, Nazra, Click, and Spot all bet that Keith would be the one to mess it up. Everyone else voted it would be Lance. 

"Quiet," Click suddenly hissed. "They're saying something."

All noise stopped and Pidge fiddled with some controls so that the voices of the two boys filtered in clearly through the music. 

"I need to clarify something," Keith said. Lance moved to pull away, but Keith wouldn't let him. Instead he swung the blue paladin around so they were once again crotch to crotch, but kept them swaying to the music. 

"What's up?" Lance asked breathlessly. He didn't seem bothered that he and Keith were speaking inches from each other's face. 

"I just... I know I'm not the best with communicating, but I really don't hate you. Not even a little. I'm just an introvert, and when we first met I didn't know how to deal with someone so outgoing. You were kind of a new experience for me, and I'm really sorry I made you think I hated you. I really admire you and think you are an amazing person."

"Way to go buddy," Shiro murmured proudly. Pidge promptly hit him to shut him up so they didn't miss Lance's response. The blue paladin's eyes had blown wide – he was still swaying in time with Keith, but he looked completely lost. There was something raw and vulnerable in his expression. 

"I... really?" Lance's voice was uncharacteristically small. 

"Yeah. I always meant to talk to you about it but I was being a coward. I don't know how to talk to people so I just avoided it instead. I'm so sorry Lance." 

Lance looked close to tears. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, but no words game out. He was completely lost. 

It was at that moment the song switched. For a second no one realized what was playing, and then the first line was belted out in the sweet tones of Rick Astley. 

_"Never_ _gonna_ _give you up. Never_ _gonna_ _let you down."_

"No fucking way," Pidge said. 

All the humans scrambled for the iPod, hoping to change the song before everything on the training deck was ruined, but it was too late. Rick Astley seemed to jolt the red and blue paladins back to reality. They both leapt away from each other. Lance's insecurity quickly disappeared behind his carefully crafted mask of cheerfulness, while Keith visibly withdrew into himself.

All their bets were also null since the Rick Roll was the real mood killer. None of the aliens understood what the issue was, but they did know that it had destroyed the intimate atmosphere. 

"I uhm, I should go take a shower," Lance said, his voice too cheerful and too loud  to be genuine. 

"Yeah I think I'm going to stay and do some regular training," Keith said. 

"Cool, then I'll just... bye." Lance turned on his heel and marched to the door, then stopped abruptly and spun around.

"But thanks, for uhh, for talking to me and apologizing. I'm.. I mean, it just really means a lot to know you don't hate me. I really admire you and, well yeah. See ya." Lance fled the room and everyone on the observation deck groaned. 

"Damn you Rick Astley," Allura said. Hunk and Shiro literally snorted a laugh while Pidge cackled. They would never forget the day an alien space princess said the words 'damn you Rick Astley.'

\---------

"So," Frank said casually. She was posted up in Lance's room with Spot and Click. Lance was freshly showered, his hair dripping, and his face vacant as he burrowed into Spot's fur and stared blankly at a wall. 

"Did you have a good time training?" Frank continued. Lance didn't respond. 

"Lance?"

"Baby blue?"

"Princess?" 

When he remained unresponsive Click leaned forward and flicked Lance's forehead, but that elicited no other reaction than for Lance to absently scratch the spot. 

"He's practically comatose," Click observed. 

"Lance, pull yourself together or I'm going to strip you naked, tie you up, and dump you in front of Keith's door," Frank said. That made Lance come back to alertness because knowing Frank, she would do exactly as she promised. 

"That would be a good way to get them to finally mate," Spot said. 

"You all are perverts," Lance muttered.  

"HE SPEAKS!" Frank shouted. 

"Seriously?" Lance groaned.

"Wanna tell us what's got you all..." Frank gestured vaguely to Lance.

"You just gestured to all of me."

"Stop, you know what I mean."

"Ugh, fine. So, I kinda danced with Keith."

"How'd that go?" Click asked, pretending not to know. 

"He... He told me he doesn't hate me." Lance's voice was small, but there was a happy note to it. 

"I'm happy for you," Frank said genuinely. Lance beamed at her. 

"I just, I can't believe it. I seriously thought he hated me, but he doesn't! He really doesn't hate me!"

"So you going to fuck him now?" Click asked. 

"Click what the fuck?" Frank said. Click shrugged.

"What? It seems like the natural progression, but I don't actually understand sexual beings. Am I wrong?"

"No, but you stole my question!" 

"What is wrong with you two?" Lance said. 

"They just want to see you happily mated," Spot said. 

"Well thanks, but just because he doesn't hate me doesn't mean he wants to be my friend, let alone date me."

Spot groaned. He took in a deep breath, and then let it out, causing Lance to collapse deeper into his fur. 

"This is impossible." Frank grunted. 

"What? Why are you guys all butt hurt all of a sudden?"

"No reason. We're glad you're happy."

Lance smiled again. "Man this was a really good day. Hunk made pancakes for breakfast, Pidge helped me set up the music system in the training deck, Keith said he doesn't hate me. Shiro offered to train with me. Man I don't think I've felt this happy in weeks."

Frank's face softened. She reached forward and pushed some damp hair out of Lance's face. Spot cranned his neck so he could lick up some of the water that had dripped onto Lance's face. Click grabbed Lance's forgotten towel and threw it at his head before using it to vigorously scrub at his hair and remove the dampness. Lance squawked indignantly, but ultimately didn't protest. 

"You really are too good for this world." Frank said. 

"Aww, love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so self-indulgent. Hehe.
> 
> I want some input for you guys on where to go from here. 
> 
> Option 1: time skip. Potentially skip to after season 6. So much drama happens after the fight with Zarkon that I am kinda out of ideas on how to make comedy out of it. 
> 
> Option 2: keep going at this super slow pace and keep adding ridiculous events.
> 
> Option 3: ??? I'm open to suggestions! 
> 
> All I have planned for the future is the paladins building a blanket/pillow fort. Someone requested that from me forever ago and I will be writing that chapter very very soon! But if ya'll have anything you want to see, drop it in the comments or hit me up on Tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> If you would like to chat with me outside the comments section of this website, feel free to hit me up on Tumblr: https://celty-writes.tumblr.com
> 
> I adore comments and respond to almost every single one I get so keep them coming! You all are amazing and beautiful people.


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